Can you tell what it is yet.....?

[bishbosh]

Been tinkering in the garage for a few hours, days, weeks and have crafted these two lumps of scrap:

and

Can anyoe guess what they are for.....?

[Anderzander]

Some sort of underbody protection?

[Bowie69]

Hmmm..... your rear winch fairlead bracket and a new bolt-in crossmember for the rear winch?

Some lovely work there, nice to see the new fab bench being used extensively

[YAS328]

Some sort of adjustable tow bar drop plate quick release thingmyjig....?

[hattymender]

Is there a prize?

[hattymender]

Gear box protection? Top one looks a bit like the removal cradle in the manual.

Clues? Scale?

[bishbosh]

OK, a couple of clues.....

and

[white90]

Rear winch mount for the load space and the fair leads required to fit to the towing attachment point.

[patch1]

Is it a center winch setup?

[bishbosh]

OK folks, I'll put you out of your misery.

Hatty, prize???????? It's not Christmas you know!!

I intend to mount my rear winch between the feet of the B hoop of the roll cage. It makes it easily visible for the driver, the free spool is within reach, it keeps it out of the muck and leaves the rear of the vehicle standard and useable for everyday stuff.

I had planned to mount the fairlead directly to the rear cross member but was convinced by Shrek that crawling about under the truck to bolt it on would be a pain. It would also mean that to use the rear winch the rear door would have to be removed as I don't want to cut a hole in it.

So, I started thinking and came up with what you have seen - a bracket that bolts to the rear of my box section cross member and at the same time acts as a spreader plate for my recovery point.

This bracket has four captive nuts that receive the bols that hold the fairlead bracket in position.

The fairlead can be mounted in two positions - the first as shown above allows the door to be shut.

This will be usefull when Marshalling / green laning - can't be getting a chill now can I? The second position extends it rearwards by 150mm so that lateral pulls can be made without fouling the bodywork. When I get around to entering a competition (stop laughing JST, I will enter one eventually!!) I will take the rear door off as is the fashion for station wagons / hard tops :

When I am not in need of the winch, the topsides bits can be removed and stored so the rear of the vehicle can be used for the hound / shopping etc. When I need the winch, I can install the fairlead without crawling around under the truck

As the 90 is a daily driver for the missus and my off road toy this was the best compromise I could come up with. I am pretty pleased it all worked out. Even my guestimated hole pattern in the rear cross member matched the Equipe holes so I am well pleased!

[Andy-T]

Nice bit of fabrication - what is the fairlead made out of?

Or have I done my speed reading to fast and missed the answer?

Andy - T.

[Mark]

I trust you will be getting some longer bolts into those nyloks bish?

looks good though, I like the flexibility :)

cheers

Mark

[bishbosh]

The fairlead is four short radius stainless pipe elbows welded together and then shot blasted.

The bolts are going back - every bluddy one is 15mm too short, despite me giving them precise grip lengths . Most unusual for them to cock up like that too..