the winch bed

I had decided to install the winch in rear and have winch batteries on the cargo bed. There was a heavy hook with air connectors in rear, so first I removed them, plugged air lines and started to sketch winch bed in hooks place.

As a starting point I bought 1m long square tube size 400mmx400mm and with 10mm material thickness.

The idea was to cut the tube open and place the winch inside.

This followed a lot of sparks and metal grinding.

 Here it starts revealing the design

First fitments can be done

And here it is in the bed with some welding done

First trials of installiny the bed to chassis.

I made some  reinforcment lines to keep the tube angles intact. There is also attachment rings below the bed with extra reinforcment lines, which should keep the winch itself in straight form. We'll see how it goes, when the hard pull comes.
Here is the finshed product.

Still to do is to have the wireless remote connected to winch. I'm trying to find a compatible connector, which I could just wire in. Then I could plug the wired or wireless control as I wish. Also the wireless radio could be a bit off from the winch, so it could get a better field if the controller is in cabin.