Narrowing a Warn M8000

[AdrianD]

As as I always the smallest Jeep in the group, I had to get a winch.
Found an M8000 in need of TLC and decided to narrow it.

Took it apart (a good tip was to zip-tie the brake together):

Next I mocked it on the winch plate, so that it will sit between the frame rails and allow mounting the relay box next to it, it's 3 inches narrower than factory:

I chopped the drum to shorten it opposite of the splined end, then went nuts with the flap disc on the old weld, until the side plate came off. Cut 3 small tubes to help align it:

I chopped the same amount from the hex drive, no photos of that, sorry.

45 feet of synthetic rope with some room:

I also cut the hawse and had it welded:

Plenty of room:

 

[TreeClimber]

Your narrowing looks like a nice job. Not sure I'd mount it upside down. Not sure I'd mount the ground strap to the winch plate. And I'm really not sure I see any need for narrowing it at all for your application, let alone for the loss of winch cable capacity..... and lastly, I'm not sure I'd call that a Jeep. (from what I've read, Warn Company has no issues with mounting the winch upside down.)

 

[RunningProblem]

How much line do you have on there now?

 

[TreeClimber]

How much line do you have on there now?

Text says 45 feet synthetic line.

 

[TRINDU]

You built a RC9, well sorta

 

[AdrianD]

Your narrowing looks like a nice job. Not sure I'd mount it upside down. Not sure I'd mount the ground strap to the winch plate. And I'm really not sure I see any need for narrowing it at all for your application, let alone for the loss of winch cable capacity..... and lastly, I'm not sure I'd call that a Jeep. (from what I've read, Warn Company has no issues with mounting the winch upside down.)

I moved the ground directly to the battery on the final install :)

I wanted the relay box next to the winch, that's why I narrowed it. A 40 feet extension and soft shackles are always in the Jeep :P

Why wouldn't you mount it upside down?

It doesn't have to be a complete shitbox if it's a Jeep. I can take it offroad with a wheel swap and I can take it on vacation across Europe with the street tires
Shit's plenty capable for where I wheel.

 

[TreeClimber]

It doesn't have to be a complete shitbox if it's a Jeep. I can take it offroad with a wheel swap and I can take it on vacation across Europe with the street tires
Shit's plenty capable for where I wheel.

No worries. We tease Cherokee (and Grand Cherokee) people all the time about driving their unibody off road all the time.

 

[AdrianD]

No worries. We tease Cherokee (and Grand Cherokee) people all the time about driving their unibody off road all the time.

You got me good 😁

 

[AdrianD]

Bump from the dead, I had a situation where I was afraid of the short winch line:

The tree line was almost 150 feet from the start of the climb. All cars that got stuck and had standard winch lines needed extensions, so alone I would've been screwed even without narrowing the winch.

Luckily lockers and good tires got me up without the need to winch.

 

[AdrianD]

This was a bit frustrating to winch with the short line:

The truck had almost 3 yards of sand in the bed and I had to re-rig 3 times to get it up.

Re-rigging wasn't as frustrating as maneuvering in place on street tires in the mud...

 

[CarterKraft]

Awesome job on the shortening.
I can't see it matters being upside down, what is a no-no sometimes is top-winding (bottom in your case) or pulling off the opposite side of the spool increasing the load on the mount bolts housings.

 

[AdrianD]

Thanks! It's pulling from the top, closest to the mounting bolts and I have a marker when it reaches 4 loops on the spool.
I think the worst part about being upside down is that I need to peek through the hawse and see if it's sitting nicely on the spool.