[shabz]

I've been toying with the idea of fitting 'proper' recovery points to the front of the GV.

I know there may be issues with the legalities of having something like this facing forwards, but it the easiest, simplest thing i could come up with.

I've already double plated the brackets that go into the chassis, and will be bolted with high tensile M12's and crush tubes

I'm thinking 10mm plate, bolted directly to the bullbar brackets. Here's a cardboard mock up.


other side


With the bar on here's roughly what it'll look like. The shackle hole is big enough to get a 4.7T shackle through, so i could make it a bit smaller just for a 3.25T one.
The top one is roughly where it'll stick through the bar. The bottom one was another idea so it wouldn't stick out so much, saves about 15-20mm. At the moment the top one doesn't stick out any further than the plastic mould on the bar or the spot lights.






I also played around with the idea of L-shaped recovery points bolted to the bottom of the winch plate, with access through the air vents at the bottom of the bar. Lot more complex and not very user friendly.

What do you guys think?


Also - what ever happened to that twirly thing in photobucket?

[magnat]

I ended up just getting a set of Brackets made up and attached it to the sub-frame with High Tensile bolts..
There are not a hell of a Lot of options for an XL-7/GV..

[shabz]

Thanks Magnat - I saw an idea like that on another forum.

Just a couple of things that bother me about it - it's pretty low and tucked under the car. What is the access like if you're stuck in deep ruts? I'd imagine that it would dig into the ground being where it is. I could be wrong though.

Also, you've got the ECB bar swell so maybe you can confirm - from what i can tell if you have a strap coming off that hook perfectly level with the car, it comes very close to touching the bottom of the bar. In most cases the strap will go upwards slightly, meaning that the strap will potentially bend the bottom lip of the bar upwards and damage the strap.

Simple, strong idea though, it's more about access when stuck and interference with the bar. How do you find them?

[magnat]

Yeah as I said... not to many options and yes.. Potentially it could pull upwards..

[Sco-tie]

Top one should work, you could do one on each side and use an equiliser strap to be sure. As for legalities I'm pretty sure i read that nothing can stick out from the furtherest point on the bar and i think they put those plastic/rubber molds on the front so you can have spottie otherwise the spotties would stick out more. So if the furthest part counts as that plastic then it should be fine but if its the bar then guess not. All else fails its easy to remove with just a couple of bolts. I would stick with the 4.7T shackle size for uniformity.

[just_cruizin]

Lower option looks better, start it at the fold and make the tab a bit taller, it'll appear to not stick out as far and you could angle the bottom edge up slightly as well.

[Built4thrashing]

Your not allowed to have any sharp edges either.

[shabz]

Here's the template for the lower one



here's a shot for size reference. I got the dimensions for the shackle hole of the net (30x50mm oval). The hole is just big enough to fit the fat end of a 4.7T shackle through

Sco-tie wrote:

Top one should work, you could do one on each side and use an equiliser strap to be sure. As for legalities I'm pretty sure i read that nothing can stick out from the furtherest point on the bar and i think they put those plastic/rubber molds on the front so you can have spottie otherwise the spotties would stick out more. So if the furthest part counts as that plastic then it should be fine but if its the bar then guess not. All else fails its easy to remove with just a couple of bolts. I would stick with the 4.7T shackle size for uniformity.

Planning on making one for each side. however I'm thinking of going with the lower one now, only because it's much more discrete, even if it is a little more work.

just_cruizin wrote:

Lower option looks better, start it at the fold and make the tab a bit taller, it'll appear to not stick out as far and you could angle the bottom edge up slightly as well.

Looking at some of the generic recovery points out there, i could make the part that sticks out much smaller, just enough to fit the pin through and not the whole shackle. Which fold are you referring to?

Also I just looked at the bottom bit on the bar again, and i can shorten it 10mm very easily so it sticks out less. I'll probably stick to using the smaller shackle so i can shorten it even more.

Built4thrashing wrote:

Your not allowed to have any sharp edges either.

Yeah i know. I remember reading a pdf from somewhere official (from vicroads or similar) about bull bars that had all that kind of info. Can't find it now

[Sco-tie]

I don't like the lower one in the L shaper it gives leverage onto the bolts, the straighter the better. If you can make it so just the pin fits then that would work

[pezz]

would you be able to tie it into the chassy to make it a lop sided 'T' bracket?

[shabz]

Sco-tie wrote:

I don't like the lower one in the L shaper it gives leverage onto the bolts, the straighter the better. If you can make it so just the pin fits then that would work

I agree with you. Im just trying to find the right balance of "strong enough" and keeping it from sticking out too much. I think that the L -shaped version in 10mm or even 12mm thick with high tensile M12 bolts in a 10.9 or higher should be enough.

Anyone here with fabrication/engineering skills able to confirm?

pezz wrote:

would you be able to tie it into the chassy to make it a lop sided 'T' bracket?

Yeah i've have a think about ways i could tie it into the chassis, but its start to get too complex/impractical

[Built4thrashing]

Could you not bolt one of the rated off the shelf hooks to the underside of the winch plate and just feed the end of a Strap through the air vents..... Might require you to make the vent hole bigger but its out of sight.

[shabz]

Built4thrashing wrote:

Could you not bolt one of the rated off the shelf hooks to the underside of the winch plate and just feed the end of a Strap through the air vents..... Might require you to make the vent hole bigger but its out of sight.

Thats another option, already sussed it out.

If bolted directly to the bottom of the winch plate, you won't be able to reach it through the air vents, it needed to be about 90mm lower to make it usable. The solution I came up with is to bolt 100x100x10mm angle (not even sure i can get that size?) to the bottom of the winch plate, and then bolt to hook to the angle just on the inside of the air vent.

Without having a hook to play with I'm not sure if it'll work. Just feeding the eye of a strap through the air vent is a tight squeeze

[shabz]

So i made a couple more cardboard templates to try to figure out how i could make this work. No matter what it'll be exposed out the front of the bar too much for my liking.

Went down to BCF and picked up a couple of those recovery hooks so i could try and see how they could fit. I figured if they won't fit i could always return them easily.
Turns out they fit through the air vents easily with room to get a strap on (originally i thought they were much bigger than they actually are). They'll poke out of the vents a little, but no where near as much as my other ideas.

Will be using 10mm thick angle bolted to the winch plate, and then bolt the hook to the angle through the air vent.

[Built4thrashing]

I knew I was on a winner with that idea.... Post pics when ya done

[VitNick]

I have done the exact same thing on my SV, altho the front of the frame is slightly different. I went with 10mm plate that is bolted to chassis with 3 m12 high tensile bolts, then a tab that goes through the bar and sticks out just under the rubber piece on the bar. They work super well and I have also made the brackets part of my winch mounting. Can take some pics and put some pics up tomorrow if you want.

[shabz]

Built4thrashing wrote:

I knew I was on a winner with that idea.... Post pics when ya done

Will do.
Got started on it today. It's all pretty fiddly and time consuming, but i think it'll finish up quite well.

VitNick wrote:

I have done the exact same thing on my SV, altho the front of the frame is slightly different. I went with 10mm plate that is bolted to chassis with 3 m12 high tensile bolts, then a tab that goes through the bar and sticks out just under the rubber piece on the bar. They work super well and I have also made the brackets part of my winch mounting. Can take some pics and put some pics up tomorrow if you want.

Yes please, close up pics too see how it comes out of the bar will be nice.


I ended up getting a couple of recovery hooks, and decided that i'll use those instead as they won't be sticking out the front of the bar and will look more discrete.

Will post some pics soon, but so far I've cut out the basic shape of the mounts (started with 150x100x10mm angle ), drilled a few holes and bolted to the bottom of the winch plate.

[VitNick]

Here are some pics of the tabs I made up. I had to make a cut out around them on the bar (messiest job you will see) as I made the tabs too short. A 3.75t shackel fits through nicely now and they don't stick out too far.






The winch cradle is bolted onto these tabs using 8 x m10's so ties them together and keep it strong, I hope.

[shabz]

Thanks for that. As long as it all works i think thats more important than looking pretty

Since i've decided on what i'm going to do I've taken it to my thread ---> viewtopic.php?p=775262#p775262