Receiver mounted winch?

[myusername]

I have a 2013 E350 and I’m starting to try and figure out what winch set-up will work for me/my budget. I don’t really feel like spending $2300 on a fancy bumper with a winch mount. So I was wondering if a receiver mounted winch is effective? And what are the pros and especially cons to using a receiver mounted winch?
I could see it being a pain to have to store the winch inside the van and then carry it out to the receiver when I need it. I just don’t see many pictures of people with this style of winch mount so I have a feeling I might be missing something.

[marret]

Good thing about receiver mounted winches is you can set them up to be used front and rear. Heavy though, be a pain to move as mentioned. Need to make sure the receiver is strong enough front and rear, either a class V or minimum class IV.

[shenrie]

a few pros: works on any vehicle with the right set of jumper cables, used on front or back of rig, very budget friendly.

a few cons: only 9k rated front receivers available for econoline, winches are heavy to move around, winch caddy’s when I was shopping were junk, not sure if that’s changed.

Ours resides in the front receiver, not ideal, but it’s out of the way. It’s been nice being able to just throw it on other vehicles when needed. we used welding cable to wire van with pole connectors. caddy was pretty cheap to make and has help up great so far, but we haven’t had to put full weight of van yet and don’t really plan on it. if your a serious wheeler it might not be the best route, but it’s worked great for us in numerous situations.

[spazegun2213]

Originally Posted by shenrie

a few pros: works on any vehicle with the right set of jumper cables, used on front or back of rig, very budget friendly.

a few cons: only 9k rated front receivers available for econoline, winches are heavy to move around, winch caddy’s when I was shopping were junk, not sure if that’s changed.

Ours resides in the front receiver, not ideal, but it’s out of the way. It’s been nice being able to just throw it on other vehicles when needed. we used welding cable to wire van with pole connectors. caddy was pretty cheap to make and has help up great so far, but we haven’t had to put full weight of van yet and don’t really plan on it. if your a serious wheeler it might not be the best route, but it’s worked great for us in numerous situations.

would you mind posting up pictures of your setup? I'm not a serious wheeler, but I've also been thinking about using a hitch mounted winch vs something more serious.

[shenrie]

Sorry for late reply, van was at the shop.

We initially got this setup as a loophole to not need a wrecker at a race event we used to put on yearly. The idea was that the van weighs at least 3x what any of the typical racecars at the event, so theoretically we could either get the car back to the surface or worst case secure car until driver was extracted and a real wrecker was dispatched.

We never had to use it for why we purchased it but have used it to free a few friends but it’s been used for firewood gathering more than everything else combined, so I can’t say that this setup could rescue myself from a jam. The one time we tried it was basically to pull us up an icy incline where I couldn’t get a run. It worked well but the only resistance was gravity. Not 4-35x12.50 tires sunk to the axle in thick gooey mud.







Sorry for the excessive rust. Had van in an area over thanksgiving where they use the mag cloride as snow melt and I never had a chance to spray it off. Rust happens quick with that crap. If you need more pix or info, just ask. Happy to help if I can

[REDOVAL]

We just got our receiver setup completed after a long process of creating a flush bolt on front receiver behind the Weldtec Designs prerunner bumper and working out the storage location. We used an off the shelf winch cradle and a 9.5k Smittybilt Gen3 XRC synthetic winch mated to 2/0 cable, Blue Sea fuses and Anderson PP SB350 connectors. We also created triangulation braces for the front setup to make sure we can pull off-axis as hard as we need without overloading the receiver setup. We have yet to use it and hope to never touch it!
If you are on Instagram follow along as we detail all of these types of things...@daddozr

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Scott Thompson