Lucky enough for me, my mom happened to be standing there and offered to buy me a winch for my trailer. Not being too picky, and opting for cheap since mom was paying, we took off to Harbor Freight. They had 2 winches I figured would be enough for trailer use. A "portable" unit, and a regular hardmount unit. Price difference $20. I went ahead and got the cheaper portable, but in reading over the destructions I noticed it didn't have a load-braking feature. I can't say this is completely a problem, but it was enough to make me realize there could be in the future. Any experience with these things guys? I can spring the extra $20, but around here winches get stolen a lot and I'm not gonna risk a bling winch to just get it stolen.
Come along suggestion Hello - In my experience, the standard come along designs are generally less than satisfactory because they are built too light to handle repeated maximum pull events. About 10 years ago, I discovered a come along in an industrial supply store in Los Angeles that has proven to be nearly indestructible. It has winched dead Caterpillar 30 tractors onto my trailer (10,000 lbs + force to drag stuck tracked tractor onto inclined trailer, done triple pull) and various other serious pulling duties. It has never broken or been a cause for a safety concern (not so my high lift jack !!). It is constructed of cast steel and machined components (no sheet metal handles, ratchets, etc.) I'd highly recommend it. And, it fits in a reasonable sized toolbox that will fit behind your seat ... no theft issues. I have only once or twice wished for a winch on my trailer, and these were times when it was too hot and too much work to make this come along go ... so I don't have any winch recommendations for you ... https://www.wyeth-scott.com/ Cheers, Dave.
Do you know any fabricators? I had a plate made that I could bolt the winch to. That plate was welded to 2-inch square stock - the same size your hitch receiver will accept. Looking from the side, the square tubing with plate on top make a T. You'll mount your winch on top of the T Now, all you need is a receiver. Your fabricator should be able to construct a vertical receiver somewhere in the trailer tongue that your portable winch mount will slide down into. Once you're happy with the alignment, drill a hole crossways so you can put a pin through it (or a lock like you probably have holding your hitch in the receiver). Then, when you're done, pull the pin and take your winch someplace secure until next time. I use a modification to this idea. I have a Warn winch in a cradle (I forget what Warn calls it). The cradle slides into a hitch receiver. If I need to winch from the front or rear, I just pop it in place, plug it in (I wired the truck for this) and winch away. For the trailer, I got a bolt-on receiver from Lowe's and anchored it to the trailer with grade-8 bolts. I slide in the cradle, plug it in, and drag anything I want up on that trailer. Hope these ideas will help!
Its been a couple weeks and I kind of made a variation on this. I have gone ahead and kept the cheap HF winch, including the "drop over ball" attachment bracket. The base of the winch is cut out to accept a bracket that will slip over any trailer ball and use that as the winching point. Should work well for portability as it doesn't have any extra large parts to carry around (bad back). Can use it on the front hitch, the back hitch, or on the trailer. I took a piece of black pipe and dropped it down through the stop rail on my hauler. Welded it in and put a ball with a 3" shank on the rail. Havn't had the chance to hook up the electrical to it all yet; got distracted by a neat set of bucket seats I threw in the truck. Hopefully today or tomorrow I'll get the wires done now that I have something way more comfortable to sit on.
Sounds like it could work just fine! Personally I won't hook anything to a trailer ball that isn't a trailer. A few years ago in one of the 4x4 magazines they had a picture of a truck with a 4" hole through the windshield. Seems he was stuck and they had put the tow strap from his frame hook to the trailer hitch of the rescue vehicle. The ball snapped off and became a projectile as the strap recoiled. Reminded me of that story of David and Goliath!
