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This info pertains to any winch, but I worked on an ARB bumper on the FJ Cruiser with a Warn XD9000 winch.
The ARB bumper has a belly skid plate you must take off, so this info will not pertain to other makes of bumpers.
Unless you have 12" long fingers and can squeeze them in behind the roller fairlead, you best take off the skid plate.
Same with the winch, some use a small set screw with a hold drilled in the side of the drum you attach the line with a mount that is included on the line.
Warn winches are set up this way, other makes of winches are a little different, so I am including a PDF scan from Winchline.com that I scanned in.
My old Masterpull synthetic winchline was still in good shape, but the safety hook on the end was not.
When ARB did my install of the bumper, winch, and OME lift, we noticed the hook was seized up.
It took lots of spray grease and a hammer to loosen it up.
Taking it off the lower front factory tow mount it was seized again.
I did not want to get into a situation in the mountains where I needed to winch myself or someone else and not be able to free the hook.
This new Viking Trail Line I bought from Winchline.com is 5/16"x100', and has a safety thimble on the end of it.
No hook hanging down, and you can snug your line in all the way, and the safety thimble stops it at the fairlead.
The safety thimble is made to work with a 3/4" D ring shackle, and that is how you would hook it to a tree saver strap, or to a rig you are pulling out.
I had never seen a setup like this before until I started surfing Winchline.com's website.
It is pretty trick, and a lot safer than having a hook.
Parts Required:
New synthetic winchline of course, with your choice of end recovery device.
You can go with either a standard hook, the clasp hook, or the safety thimble like I went with.
The choice is yours.
Me being a safety conscious person I went with the thimble, and less hassle of a hook seizing up on me like before.
Tools Needed:
(1) For the ARB bumper I needed to pull of the front skid plate that covers the bottom of the winch drum.
Socket handle using a 12mm and 10mm socket.
(2) 5/32" allen wrench for the bolt that holds the winchline to the drum.
(3) Tape, duct tape or electrical tape.
This is used to secure the excess line coming off of the set screw.
If your winch does not have the screw hold on the side of the drum, more info is in this PDF file.
Also the PDF file contains information that pertains to those of us who do have the hole in the side of the drum.
If you have the ARB bumper on an FJ Cruiser, you will need to remove the included skid plate.
Take off the back 12mm bolts first, there are two of them.
Then take off the front 10mm bolts, there are four of them.
View from underneath once the skid plate is removed.
Step 2:
Unlock your winch and put it into free spool.
No reason to power it up at this time, just free spool it and proceed to pull your line out.
Be careful as you get near the end, you do not want to yank on the line when it is down next to the set screw with the lines mounting system.
Step 3:
You can now see the line where it attaches to the side of the drum.
Step 4:
Using a 5/32" allen wrench, take the old line off, and save the set screw/bolt in case your new line did not come with one.
Winchline.com includes one with the new line and mount, and also has a small rubber O ring on the threaded part to hold it in place so it will not drop out of the mount when installing.
Ingenious to say the least.
After securing the screw/bolt to the side of the drum, take some tape and put some over the excess line that you lay across the width ways.
They call for duct tape, but I was fresh out of duct tape, so I used some electrical tape.
By the way, as I laid there, I was on a cold wet towel, as it was around 35 degrees out with the ground wet, but the sun came out, so I decided to tackle this today.
Besides the UPS man delivered this yesterday, and I was itching to get it installed.
Step 5:
Now take your line and unwrap it and run it back and forth on the ground next to you (not seen in the pic, I had not done that yet) and plant your butt on the ground to get some leverage.
I am left handed so I wore a glove on my left hand and put the winches remote in my right hand.
Hold the line taut and start with it next to the set screw/bolt in the drum, and start reeling in.
Make sure first that your line is on the bottom, and not the top of the drum.
If on the top, you have it backwards.
You always want the line for both in/out to be on the bottom of the drum.
Reel it in using a back and forth motion much like a fishing reel so your line is not all bunched up on one end.
Be careful to not get your fingers sucked into the fairlead, that would seriously hurt, and put a damper on any future mods you might want to install. Think safety here!
Step 6:
Once your line is all the way in almost, slow down the reeling in process.
Slowly bring the thimble (if using one like mine) to the fairlead.
Once it is up against the fairlead, you can "snug" the line in a bit more if you wish, as there will be slack on the drum.
I ran mine in and out a few times at the end to get a feel for how tight I wanted it to be up against the fairlead.
Once you are satisfied, proceed to put your skid plate back on.
The end result will look similar to this.
Hopefully your rig is not as filthy as mine
For the past week we have had 3 to 4" of snow on the ground here, and the rig really needs a bath bad.
There you have it, not to difficult at all.
I almost did not do this today, but once the sun came out it was a lot easier to get out there and work on the rig.
I feel a lot better now having the new safety thimble on instead of that hook.
Living in WA. state means plenty of rain, and having to keep that clasp hook I had on before from Masterpull I would have to be lubing it quite often.
The safety thimble from Winchline.com has no moving parts to seize up.
Any questions about this article, please contact Corey, and not Writeups@YotaTech
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Contact Corey for info.
01-20-2007, 12:33 PM
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