Winch Craft

A winch kit could prove to be the ultimate ‘bolt on’ accessory should your Freelander get into a spot of bother off-road

Arguably the most imaginative of the adverts on television in recent months have been the Land Rover Freelander series. For the uninitiated, an old African tracker is seen in the Bush whispering like David Attenborough, while searching for the spoor of unknown beasts. All of a sudden, the ‘beasts’ reveal themselves to be a herd of Freelanders, which proceed to drive off as gracefully as a herd of gazelles leaving for greener pastures – at one point pursued by an aggressive rhino.

Full marks to Land Rover – its advert has done exactly what I was expected it would do. It has in essence captured a new breed of Land Rover owner with this portrayal of the Freelander as a go-anywhere vehicle which possesses the grace and comfort of a road car. The advert is basically saying: ‘this vehicle will be equally at home on tarmac as it is on the veldt’.

For sure, it’s not uncommon to see a Freelander doing the school-run or making forays into the supermarket car park, where angry, aggressive rhinos roam in the form of over-laden runaway shopping trolleys.

Many hardcore Land Rover fans don’t see the Freelander as a serious off-roader, probably because of its monocoque subframed construction and lack of low ratio gears.

The Downhill Descent Control does however help to make up for some of the bits that Land Rover decided were not essential. Life is all about compromise. Not everyone wants to spend all weekend up to their door handles in dirty brown water. If that’s what you aspire to do, buy a tooled-up Land Rover 90. On the other hand if you would like to take the family out for a picnic and a superb driving experience beyond the confines of tarmac then this is where the Freelander can excel.

It’s quite possible to spend truckloads of cash on a new Freelander with a vehicle starting at around the £20,000 bracket; but it is also possible to find a three door 1.8 1997 petrol at an auction for a mere £7500 and prices are coming down all the time.

Look through the pages of Land Rover World and you’ll see that manufacturers of aftermarket products are now falling over themselves to promote the sales of ‘bolt on goodies’ so that owners can personalise their Freelanders. In later articles we will investigate these ranges in more depth.

As nimble as the Freelander is it would be foolhardy to disappear off into the countryside without taking any precautions that could be of assistance in helping to remove the Freelander unassisted from ‘the poop’.

Precautions

Some sort of winch is going to be useful. Mechanical or electrical are the first that spring to mind, the electrical option being easier on the muscles. But do bear in mind that the vehicle is only going to be used for gentle forays in the countryside.

Many among the brigade of Series and coilsprungs drivers enjoying their vehicles fearlessly into any old swamp. Tanking the Freelander off road is an entirely different ball game altogether. The easiest way to recover a vehicle from a sticky situation is to extract it the way it went in. Therefore a front mounted winch with all its aesthetic beauty is of little use once you’re stuck, with the front of the vehicle completely buried.

Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if the winch could be fitted to the rear of the vehicle? Come to think of it wouldn’t it be much easier to have a winch that you could fit to either the front or the rear of the vehicle in seconds? One that could be left at home in the garage while everyday chores are undertaken, and not to be found in evidence on those trips beyond the line dodging supermarket trolleys. It would be much more useful if you could fit the winch to your Land Rover in situations when you might actually need it.

Devon 4x4, the agent for Warn products in the south west, are offering a ‘do it yourself’ fitting kit for the Freelander. The kit consists of a Warn M6000 SDP short spool winch and all the necessary fitting instructions. Prices start at £749.00.

Easy to fit

Fitting the system is child’s play for the average handyman or woman. Dealing with the electrical side is relatively easy but you will need some overalls and various tools, including a jack for lifting the nearside of the vehicle. A positive and negative ‘feed and earth’ cable supplied in the fitting kit must be run from the battery along the underside of the vehicle to an isolator switch. From the isolator switch two cable are then run on to the winch mounting position and are terminated in an Anderson connector that’s bolted to the bumper. That’s the electrical side of the job done.

A receiver mounting not included in the basic kit must be fitted to the vehicle. This takes the form of a heavy steel hollow square box section that’s machined to receive a chrome steel securing pin, which holds the winch assembly in position when it’s slid into the receiver. The winch is a self contained unit that has a carrying handle and weighs just 60kg. The short spool drum keeps the overall dimensions down to 16.5in and is fitted with 15-metres of 8mm cable, terminated in a safety hook running through a Hawse Fairlead. The motor is a whopping 4.8-horse capable of dealing with the 6000lb rated single line pulling capacity. Fastened above the motor is the solenoid control pack, with a socket for the remote control wanderlead.

All you need to do now is plug the Anderson connector on the winch assembly into the connector that was fastened to the bumper and put the isolator into the ‘on’ position. Hey presto! You’re now ready to winch. An optional piece of kit is a mounting assembly – a ‘dummy receiver’ that can be bolted down inside the vehicle to keep the winch secured when not in use.

Simon Buck at Devon 4x4 can be contacted on this number: 01769 550900. It’s good to talk.