HOWTO: Build Your Winch RTFM!!!
As soon as I saw Sfumato I knew I had to get a winch here in Tahiti. For a while I didn't think too much about it, figuring there was no way to build my own here in the middle of the Pacific. After an iChat convo with Chris Desgeorges from Omen Skates I realized it could be done. He gave me the list of parts he used to build his, a single measurement and a few pictures. And off I went happily on the world wide web to google and order the needed parts! Here it is:
| SKU | QTY | |
| AZ8183-14 | Jackshaft 3/4" OD x 14" Length x 3/16" Keyway | 1 |
| AZ2145 | “B” Type Sprocket for #35 Chain, 17 Tooth, 3/4" Bore 1 | 1 |
| 203603A | 30 Series Drive Unit, 1" Bore | 1 |
| 217778A | 30 Series Driven Unit, 3/4" Bore, 7" Dia | 1 |
| 203598A | Belt for 30 Series. 37-7/64" OC. | 1 |
| AZ1411-36 | 1" Deluxe Flexpruf Solid Steel Axle Std End 36" | 1 |
| GC XT 40 | Xtreme #35 High Perf. Racing Chain | 1 |
| H035500 | Horstman #35 Rear Sprocket 55T | 1 |
| T 6470 | TSR Billet Sprocket Hub 1 inch | 1 |
| P16SCR | Buyers 1in. Hydraulic Pillow Block | 2 |
| P12SCR | Buyers 3/4in. Hydraulic Pillow Block | 2 |
| 64952 | WARN Works® Roller Fairlead | 1 |
| 1342 | 2-Piece, 4-Hole 6in. Split Rim | 1 |
| 138291 | SGL FL Kart Hub 4H 1in. Bore | 2 |
That list is just the main mechanics of your winch. You still need to think of a way to make a spool (6in inner diameter, whatever diameter you like for the sidewalls and about the width of your engine) and choose a material type for your winch frame. For me the easiest to get was galvanized steel. It is a good option on the cheap side that will not corrode. The steel has a zinc coating bonded, so that if you grind it down it is still protected. But once you heat it up to weld it that zinc gets vaporized so you need to use an anti rust primer on all your welds. Also note that zinc vapors are pretty bad so watch out when you do your welding. Buy 5cmX5cm steel so that it fits right into a tow hitch receiver (I think thats 2X2 for you guys). You also need a thick plate of steel, diamond plate is cool cause its pimp. That plate will be used to mount the engine so it must not vibrate, 4-5mm is a good thickness. That's it for the materials side of things.
Now you need to pick an engine. The transmission used for this design is a Comet 30 Series. Just make sure you order the right serial #s and all 3 parts (belt, driver, driven) will work together. This leads to our engine choice. Most winches I've seen, including the first edition of the Distortion Grinch are using 6.5HP with a Torq-A-Verter or something kit. For me that screams low hp and most of all low torque. If you notch it up to 9hp (350 bucks engine from the right stores people!!) and use a Comet 30 Series you will feel and love the stronger and better pull!! So it is settled, get an EX27 9HP Robin-Subaru engine. Check out your LOCAL Harbor Freight for the best deal on those engines. So counting the engine, all the parts from that list, and added materials for construction you are 100% sure to be under $1000.
So this is what I ordered. Getting all that down here in Tahiti was no piece of cake but it got done eventually. Thanks for the US size system getting the right screws here was another challenge by itself! Now that all is here, let's get some winch building going!!!
3- Welding the base of the frame.
6- Drilling the pillow block bearings mounting holes and making the rope lead roller.
9- Prepping for protective coat.
1- The Spool.
We pondered for a while on how to do that damn spool! I knew I had to have a 6 inch diameter spool and about the width of the engine. We figured we would cut a round plate of steel to make the sidewalls. We looked around for something circular to make a guide to draw it out and BAM it hit us... Our 300mm metal grinding disks were a perfect fit! So they got slapped on the spool right away, this by the way will play a trick on us later on... Here are a few pictures of the spool building process, it's pretty straightforward. Split the rim you bought, and use the two kart hubs to make the spool sides. Just look at the pictures, it's easy to tell what needs to be done.
This is most of what will be used to make the spool. I got that rope from a sailing shop here, it looks great but lets hope it doesn't stretch and holds up! There is about 650ft of rope. But can only strongly advise to get a good rope from the start, it can only save on later frustration when you are hitting that perfect spot and your old ass cheap rope breaks. That's why I just placed an order for 1000' of Bullet Line. They make it for winches and it even glows in the surf ... It is not on the cheap side but it is way worth it, check out their site (http://www.bulletlines.com), and no I don't work for them ;)
This is the metal cutting disk, you can see the exact size on the picture, and the holes we drilled. Use the hole pattern you have on your rim hubs.
Halfway done. You might want to use locktite on those bolts, although it shouldn't move much once all is in place.
All done with the sprocket mounted on the axle. You might want to weld it once all is aligned so it wont move, ever. But you need to weld all those tubes to the white rims if you want a solid spool. If you decide to give up at this point you will have a cool new weight for your workout sets... Disclaimer: don't smoke drugs while doing sports!!!
That's when we realized our winch was going to be a big sugar momma, and we don't plan on cutting down fat! It might be harder for the engine to get that heavier spool going (that's why we have power, remember) but once it gets going it will give a more constant pull as it takes more momentum. We'll see once the beta testing starts
I can't give you exact measures for your engine plate. It can vary on how you want your winch to be. I'll give you pointers on how we did it.
That's how you want it to look like so you can measure and trace the engine plate shape. First drill the holes where your engine will be and screw it down temporarily. Then you want to align the jack shaft with the driven unit. Set it up for a distance of 11 inches center shaft to center shaft from engine to jack shaft. There goes the only measurement I had for that project! Note that you will find that length on the belt packaging Then you can use the pillow blocks bearings to fine tune the belt tension. Once all is aligned roughly besides that 11inch distance draw out your engine plate and cut it. You need to make a groove in it, check the next picture to see what I mean.
Look ma! Elvis had a child in Tahiti!
3- Welding the base of the frame.
Now you want to line up the base of the frame before the welding fun starts! We first wanted to make 45 degree angles but that didn't go too well with our old ass metal cutting machine... We went for basic angles and since a single point of welding can hold over a ton lets assume our lame ass job will hold up at least half of that! So the welding started! Elvis went first as he was the only one that had done it once at school years ago... But I must admit we did a pretty good job for first time welding noobs... It probably wont look good, but it will hold up!
That's how far we went with our first afternoon of working on the winch. I will probably have fun with welding and weld along the whole length.
That is how the base of the frame ended looking like after working on it till late at night, which is a whole other story by itself... Make sure you use that protective mask!
Then comes in the Tahitian touch: grab a surfer buddy and steal his old pair of quicksilver flip flops. Then cut them in squares and use only the thick lower part of the sole. And voila!! Very cool engine mount dampeners! It looks alright for now, and it might even help! We'll see about that when the engine runs.
You need to line up everything to take your final measurements.
Check 1000000 times that it is 11inch from the center of the engine shaft and the center of the 3/4 jack shaft for the belt tension. Then lift up the spool to get the chain at a good tension.
I know this all seems very random but not having any measurement to start from has worked pretty good for us till now. Now measure how high you want your spool axle to be and how far from the back of your winch it will be. Then draw up a side view of your winch using a 1/10th scale for example and define how you want your support bars to be. This is what we came up with. Note that only one side is done... We ran short on metal cutting disks and couldn't do the final two cuts! And of course it's new years week end so the winch project will be on a break at this point. That was the drawback of using them as sidewalls lol.
Ok I finally got some metal cutting disks and it was back on like donkey kong (sorry)! We welded the other support, the bottom tube that goes into the tow hitch and we made some handles out of the spare tubing we had. Those handles can also serve to stake the winch down. You also want to cut plates the size of the tubing openings to close the frame, you don't want sand and whatnot to fill up your nice pimp frame! After all the welding and grinding done this is how the frame looks behind the truck. Once on the truck mark how long you want your support to be and where you need to drill the hole for the pin. Note that it is still missing the rope guide. This will be welded on after we know where the spool will be precisely.
6- Drilling the pillow block bearings mounting holes and making the rope lead roller.
Now you want to bolt everything back on and get it all aligned. First make sure you have your belt tension right, 11 inches!!! Then drill holes for the bearings and bolt them down.
You can now position the spool where it should stand so that the chain is how it should be, not too tight, not too loose, you might want to aim for a loose fit if you plan to use a chain tensioner. You want your spool as low as possible to make the winch more stable when it's on the ground, that's also why we went for a longer frame than what was needed. Once in place with the pillow blocks on the sides you can mark where you need your holes to be on the support arms to hold the bearings. Now drill, bolt and bam, the whole system is linked!!! The only thing left now is to weld the guiding roller in place according to where your spool is. Yes, once more you need to unscrew everything off the frame to weld, again. And it wont be the last!
We used a steel plate to shield the engine from all the water and dirt spray of the spool. Make a first steel plate the width of the thinnest part of your engine plate, the one at the front of it, and about an inch higher than your engine. Also make one triangle support for that plate and another smaller plate the same width as the first one but only 4-6 inches long. In the picture you can see two triangles, but only one is really needed, two was overkill.
Weld the two plates together at a small angle and weld the support triangle on the main plate.
Now weld the shield you just made to the end of the engine plate. Make sure your shield doesn't get in the spool way!!
After our initial tests we noticed that you want to have a wider shield, this is how we tweaked ours.
We added two joint-frames so the top part could flip up to allow for spool assembly and cleaning.
If you still need to close ending of tubes (like us) now is the time to do so because the frame is DONE.
Before finishing up the winch for good you want to have a first test run to see if all is right. When we did ours we didn't have the engine shield on yet, and it shows that you really need one if you are going to winch salt water often cause after just a couple pulls the engine was all salty, yuck! Another thing we noticed was that it helps a lot if you pop the belt out to unwind the spool, if you dont it just a pain in the ass to walk the rope. Don't expect any fancy riding in this video, it is just a couple pulls on flat water, just to show how easy it deep water starts with a very long rope, close to 1000' out, something like 800 on the longest pull. Nothing went fancy on us so off to the next step!
NOTE: This where we are at right now. Tomorrow we prep the frame for line Xing. I will update this HOWTO as we finish it up. But I can still tell you whats coming next ;)
9- Prepping for protective coat.
Use a metal brush to make all those solders and tubes shine like a penny, then grind down all the excess welds to make it look cleaner, or don't to make it look rough. Just make sure you grind or metal brush everything to help whatever coat coming next to hold on. Put a coat of anti rust paint primer on all of your welds, that is the only protection they will get for now, they no longer have the zinc protecting the steel.
That's it now do what you want with it. We are going to use Line X, a truck bed spray on protection, on the whole frame.
Now that you have a nice raw looking frame you have to give it some love! I went to a friend's that does stickers and has all the needed machines. The Omenization started!
Man, I love die cuts :) The fat one is for my truck.
My little helper!
Once the frame is done being pimped it is time to put everything back on. Start as always with the engine. This time you want to add silicone between the “local touch” blocks. This is to make sure sand or dirt doesn't build up in the small space that is left between the engine and the mounting plate. You also want to use that sealant on all of your bolts. Here is the stuff I used:
Here is how the engine plate looks before mounting the engine:
To be on the safe side use what you have left of anti rust paint primer on all your bolts and whatever else you think needs a layer a protection. Make sure you keep your chain greased (marine grease), your belt dry and after each use put some sort of protective spray on your engine like WD40 but Inox is better, or any kind of spray on protection. Check your bolts, the belt and chain tension often. Also make sure you follow your engine guidebook for oil change, that's how you keep a 4 stroke happy.
Thanks to Din, Hamata (Elvis), Nico and Tam for their help, without them it would have been a hell of a lot harder if not close to impossible!! And again, thanks to Chris for his guidelines and his help. Now go get yours done!
Different angles of the finished winch, on one of the pics you can see a tube we use as throttle control, best we got till we hook up a boat throttle, I'll updated the guide as the winch evolves.
OJ