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rear recovery point


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On my d90 I have a big tow eye bolted ontot he rear cross member. I have noticed that despite having sizavle chunky spreaders behind it that its pulling throught the member.

what the recommendations for beefing up the whole area and transferring some of the strain down the chassis somehow ?

any ideas?

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The 90 rear cross member is not really as HD as it loks.

You need IMHO a BIG plate on the front AND the back.

When I say big the rear again IMHO should be 6mm thick, and spread across as far as you can get it in width and height wise. From memory and approx something like 5 inches+ height and about 9-10 inches wide.

On the front the danger is pulling say "Sideways" can cause the cross member to flex inward by the recovery point pivoting on the metal, remember that the cross member only had a few strengthing plates between the front and back faces, so where there is no I beam (and thats most of the cross member) then there is just air (or mud maybe :lol: ) between the front and rear crossmember faces.

Again on mine I have one of the closed loop D RINGS, this is say 4 ish inches square on the mounting face (approx) BUT the plate behind it on the visible side of the landrover matches the plate on the rear.

This is all then dogged up VERY tight with 10.8t Allen bolts with Nylocs.

This way it makes for a far more robust recovery point, the plates spread the loads across a far great area, and stopp the crossmember framework distorting esp on side pulling.

HTH

Nige

PS Agree with Tonk on welded mounts above :blink: they would IMHO be unsuitable for the MWWCE so be warned anyone who will be entering, decent recovery points are a absolute MUST !

Nige

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on my old defender i had a plate made by marshland off-road, it is around 700mm long and covers the whole centre section of the rear cross member. it has large spreader plates inside at either end and in the middle.

the 2 shackle points are bolted to 20mm plate thats welded to the large 10mm plate, its quite heavy but super strong, i used it it do dozens of KERR recoveries and it didn't bend or deform at all.

med_gallery_169_181_370458.jpg

i reckon you could fab something very similar up from a few scraps of steel plate, for not a lot of money, you could make templates from 12mm ply first.

i like the fact that its so large, and it has 3 separate spreader plates inside, it spreads the load across the rear towards the end of the chassis rails, especially if you use a bridle (as i always did) to spread the load across two points.

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i hope they're welded to spreader plates aswell, cos a standard rear xmember aint strong enough imo

No spreader plates...

The standard crossmember would probably fly away in case of a killer yank anyway I fear...

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No spreader plates...

The standard crossmember would probably fly away in case of a killer yank anyway I fear...

Michele

On what you have said then your recovery poinmts are very dangerous :huh:

It doesn't matter how thick the base plates are, or how well made the recovery points are, you have it all welded to a bit of 2mm steel, which can tear off very very very easily, esp with a side pull, rope or winch usage.

Bit like having a towball bolted to a std front bumper, except the front bumper is thicker.

IF you are lucky you may see deformation via the rear crossmember skin moving outwards, this will be the 1st sign its letting go, but I fear if this isn';t the case the 1st you will know of it will be the recovery point tearing off ?

As a minor improvment can you drill right through the asembly and place a spreader plate at the back and have say 4 bolts two top and two bottom, bearing in mind that if you do them up too tight the cross member may colapse if there is no strengther section in between, and I don't know about that bit of the cross member ?

Sorry to be the damp squid, but thems dangerous as they are right now !

Nige :ph34r:

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I've used a NATO hitch (with a spreader front and rear) prior to fitting a rear winch. After that I used a set of D typer lifting eyes (the bid, 4 bolt jobs, not the 2 bolt type) which were bolted (again with spreare plates) and welded just above the jacking points. Used the latter for 18 months with no problems

DSC01268.jpg

Sorry the photos not great but its the best i could find.

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I've used a NATO hitch (with a spreader front and rear) prior to fitting a rear winch. After that I used a set of D typer lifting eyes (the bid, 4 bolt jobs, not the 2 bolt type) which were bolted (again with spreare plates) and welded just above the jacking points. Used the latter for 18 months with no problems

DSC01268.jpg

Sorry the photos not great but its the best i could find.

Will any pics of those bead locks fitted?

PS Treebloke had some nice recovery points on his TD5 that fitted through the jacking eyes on the x member

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