Well my shiny new Smittybilt XRC8 winch arrived today (first day of deliveries after Hurricane Ike) and I tried to mount it on my JK, but didn't get very far. I was trying to bolt it to the winch plate when I loosened the tie rod bolts to much and the whole thing fell apart on me!



So now I have the three main pieces, the gear box, the spool and the motor and I can't seem to get them to go back together correctly. The spool and the gear box fit together easily enough, but no matter what I try the motor won't go the last half inch necessary to reach the tie rods. It's almost as if the rotor shaft is sticking out to far or the coupling joint inside the spool isn't recessed enough. The shaft just hits the bottom of the coupling joint and stops.



Hopefully someone out there who has a XRC8 has seen this before and knows what the trick is to get these pieces to mate back together. I'm sure I'm overlooking something really simple. I'd post pictures, but I lost my light for today. Maybe I can post some tomorrow.

 

Ok, so I brought the thing inside thinking I'd take some pictures of the problem so everyone could see what the heck I was talking about and the thing just went together as easily as it came apart. Not sure what was different this time as opposed to the few dozen times I tried earlier today, but at least it's together. Unfortunately, I'm going out of town tomorrow so I won't be able to mount it until the weekend after this next one. Oh well...



Oh, and a pic... I'm gonna mount it upside down and cut out a rectangle in the stock bumper for the fair leads (like has been done by others here). Should I be worried about the fact that it's 12:30 and instead of getting some sleep for work tomorrow, I'm tinkering with a winch on my kitchen floor? I've got this Jeep thing bad...

 

welcome to the Jeep club, good luck with the winch

 

i'm eyein this winch as well, where you get it and how much $$$

seen different prices all over the place but generally around 350 or so

 

Yep, I got it for $350 at 4wd.com, but it included a free universal winch plate like has been used by others to mount winches upside down in the stock bumper. I dry fitted the plate yesterday and it lined up cleanly on the JK. The two stock holes in the JK frame were easily accessible and I simply drilled two more using the plate itself as a template. Now that I have it together and on the plate, I'm sure it won't be difficult to mount.

 

I'm still sittin here tryin to figure out WHY you took the winch apart.

 

I bought mine from 4 Wheel Parts, if you keep an eye out on their sales can get a sweet deal. I got mine for $279 with free shipping!!

4 Wheel Parts has a 4 day sale now 10% off = $269

 

Well, it wasn't intentional. I was just trying to loosen them up a bit so I could get some slack and line the bottom up with the winch plate. I'd back them out a little, nope not enough room, back out a little more, etc.; then, whoops, one came undone, but then it wouldn't go back in. Things snowballed from there...

 

Couldn't you have just unlocked the drum to get slack in the line?

 

Thats what I was thinking at first too.... but maybe he was trying to get the bolt holes to line up with the plate by loosening the case because they werent drilled in the plate perfectly