Issues with Terrafirma hidden winch and SCV6

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greiswig

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This may not be limited to just the Terrafirma system, so I wanted to give people a head's-up on issues I encountered only after pulling everything apart, paying for the winch and mount from Lucky 8, and so forth.

When I open things up, it's clear that the mount is expecting an unfilled gap between the four-hole mounts on either side of the radiator assembly. But at least on my rig, there's a lot of stuff in the way here. I believe the AC cooler is what I'm pointing to in the first picture, and there may be also a transmission cooler fitting sitting at about the same level to the left of that AC cooler. Above the AC cooler sits the power steering cooler, which makes it hard to think about relocating all three things to make room for the mount.

I'm starting to think that if I want a winch, I've got two choices:
1. a winch bumper, or
2. to fabricate my own receiver hitch to bolt in the same place as the hidden winch mount and protrude through the front bumper.

But before anyone buys and ships a hidden winch kit, you should make sure you don't have these pieces sitting between the mounts for the crash bar.

View from underneath
54DA3AD6-11A9-4AAD-A387-96DEDDC15FEE_1_105_c.jpeg


View from the driver's side
D3B79BC0-4A76-45EE-861C-50F9CC0136B9_1_105_c.jpeg


Front-on, showing the top of the cooler, the power steering cooler
C2D13FF3-3DAC-4A60-A17A-54D3CE853503_1_102_o.jpeg


Hidden winch tray, showing the bar that has to go in the space where the cooler sits.
32A02496-DCE2-47D6-818A-71CFF5DB8598_1_105_c.jpeg
 

ryanjl

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What year is yours again? V8 or SCV6?
 

CRYA

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Yep, check this thread.
 

greiswig

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Yep, check this thread.
Not sure I follow what happened there, as Dylan22 there posted that he'd made the Terrafirma mount work. Not seeing how, unless you use spacers at the back, where sheer is going to be a real issue with any side loading.
 

ryanjl

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So am I right in thinking the Terrafirma mount may work with a V8 but the SCV6 puts more stuff down there in the way?
 

greiswig

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So Lucky 8 is now saying that Terrafirma is telling them the 1" cylindrical spacers in their kit are meant to help with this situation. I'm no engineer, but I see some problems:
1) the spacers are 1" thick, but the CAC protrudes out about 1.5" from the plane of mounting. Even crushing the CAC only 1/2" doesn't sit well with me.
b) you are mounting this whole assembly to 8 bolts. Putting the mount on "stilts" long enough to get the mounting plate to clear the CAC seems like a suboptimal idea. Any sheer loads, vertical or horizontal, are going to be trying to collapse the stilts, instead of working to sheer the bolts as they would if the mount were directly on the frame. Am I wrong here?
iii) I'd almost be willing to try to fabricate something that would at least create less of a collapse issue using box iron instead of their little spacers, but then there's this: Based on what I've seen here and elsewhere, there was a lot of trimming that had to happen just to get the plastic bumper back on over the installation where there were no spacers. This is going to stick out 1.5" further still.

So I ask again: has anyone here installed this on a SCV6?
 

Michael Gain

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I have not seen a successful install keeping the same considerations that you raise. My recommendation would be to scratch the hidden winch mount and go ARB front bumper. It is an investment, but also crash tested and retains sensors. It also looks great
 

greiswig

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I think Lucky 8 will work with me on this. Terrafirma is telling them it will work, but as I mentioned I'm not convinced it would fit with 1.5" spacers. If it will, I won't be using stilts...I'll make blocks that will put lateral loads back in sheer. So I'm going to try to put the mount on using 2x4 spacers and see if the bumper cover even has a prayer of going over it. If it doesn't work, Lucky 8 will take the kit back.

Always nice when a vendor is willing to work with you, but all too often these days that isn't the case.
 

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