Cummins Dog
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2016
- Posts
- 156
- Reaction score
- 66
- Ram Year
- 2016
- Engine
- 6.7 Cummins
Finally Got’er Done! The Saga of the Winch Mount.
This evening I finally finished up mounting my Westin Sportsman Winch Mount / Grille Guard and my 12,000-pound Smittybilt X2O winch. It has been quite a “saga” as I first ordered this winch mount on June 13th…105 days, or 3 months, 13 days ago.
BTW – Here’s a pic of the truck since it's finally done, except I still have to mount my LED light bar on it.
Anyway, here’s the “saga”. On June 13th, I ordered the Westin Sportsman Winch Mount/Grille Guard #40-93555 from Walmart. Their price was about the best I’d seen and they offered free shipping to the store, which happens to be about a ¼ mile from home. Delivery was promised between June 21st and the 29th. I tracked the order across the country and it arrived at the “LA railhead” (at least according to the tracking) on June 24th. I figured it would be at the store in a day or two so a couple days later I checked the tracking again and it was still at “LA railhead” (supposedly). On June 29th, I called Wally-World and asked about it and they put me on hold to “check”. About 10 minutes later the guy came back on the phone and said, “We lost it.” Lost it?!? How do you lose something that’s as long as a Ram is wide, almost 4 feet tall and weighs like 150 pounds? Anyway, he offers to order another one and I tell him no thanks, just give me a refund and I’ll look elsewhere.
I found one on Amazon, through one of their sellers, actually a few bucks less then Wally-World and also offering free shipping. I ordered and shut my computer down as we were going out to my son’s house for the evening. After I got home that night I checked my email and there, about 2 minutes after I ordered the thing, was an email from the Amazon seller saying, “We can’t get them from our supplier, here’s a refund.” Strike two.
So, the next day I went out to the local 4 Wheel Parts store about a ½ hour away to see if I could order one there. Yes, they said, and it was about $50 more than Wally-World or the Amazon place but they could supposedly get it, but shipping was $140.00! Yikes! BUT…if I was willing to wait until they got their regular order the shipping to the store would be free. Ok, I’ll take that deal. So, the wait began. (I also ordered my winch from them, a Smittybilt 12,000-pound X2O but said I’d pick it up when the winch mount came in as I had no use for it without the mount.)
Anyway, long story short, I picked it up on August 9th, along with the winch.
So, I got right to work putting it on the truck, right? Wrong! In the meantime between ordering it and picking it up we had some “problems” at the house from a combination some termite damage, water damage from a botched bathroom remodel 10 years ago, and the roof starting to come apart from age and the assistance of the termites. So just before I picked this up our contractor started working on the house, which lasted until a couple of weeks ago (big ouch for the wallet there $$$. Yikes again!) So, while the contractor was there the driveway was totally occupied with his truck and equipment so no place to work on the winch mount/grille guard so it got stuck in the garage.
Finally, a couple days ago I got some time to install this thing. I had used a couple days prior to this to Plasti Dip my front and rear bumper and a few days for it to dry well before I started this install. I was supposed to get black bumpers when I ordered my truck but ended up with chrome and figured if I was going to fix that I’d better do it before installing this winch mount. As you may know, this winch mount installs on brackets that replace the tow hooks in a Ram 2500. If you’ve ever removed the two hooks from a 2500 CTD then you know 4 of the 8 nuts are really a bear to get to. Anyway, finally got them off and put the brackets on and when I went to put the winch tray on the brackets it was about 1/32 off and it wouldn’t slide on the mounts. I gave up for that day and the next day went out and loosened one of the brackets and wacked it with a rubber mallet (since the mounting holes were oblong and there was a little adjustment to play with) and tightened them down again. I figured this was the end of that problem so I slid the winch tray on the brackets and…suddenly realized I had miss-read the directions and the brackets were reversed, right on the left, left on the right. Shoot! So back under the truck to take them off and put them on the right way.
After that, the winch tray slid right on like it was supposed to, maybe why it didn’t want to go on in the first place.
Now, to mount the grille guard. A big awkward piece and I was wondering how I’d do that by myself as no one was available to help me at that time. It turned out that it was the easiest part of the install as I discovered that if I set the bottom rail of the grille guard on a chair and on top of a quart paint can it brought the holes right up to where they needed to be to allow me to slip the blots in. It was also wrapped in foam packing material really well so I had no fear of it scratching the truck.
So, to the winch now. Got that mounted after a small problem with the mounting of the control box as I stripped the thread as on one of the little mounting brackets and had to go buy another screw for it and a tap to rethread the bracket. And then I ran the wires up to connect to the passenger side battery and, of course, the hot cable was 18 inches short. Went to the auto parts store and found a 19-inch cable and connected it.
Whew…finally…and it actually worked too as I did have to reel in some cable that I pulled through the fairlead to connect the hook.
Anyway, I still have to mount my LED light bar on the grille guard but I’m waiting for some brackets I’ve ordered to do that.
I guess you can see why I called this a saga.
This evening I finally finished up mounting my Westin Sportsman Winch Mount / Grille Guard and my 12,000-pound Smittybilt X2O winch. It has been quite a “saga” as I first ordered this winch mount on June 13th…105 days, or 3 months, 13 days ago.
BTW – Here’s a pic of the truck since it's finally done, except I still have to mount my LED light bar on it.
Anyway, here’s the “saga”. On June 13th, I ordered the Westin Sportsman Winch Mount/Grille Guard #40-93555 from Walmart. Their price was about the best I’d seen and they offered free shipping to the store, which happens to be about a ¼ mile from home. Delivery was promised between June 21st and the 29th. I tracked the order across the country and it arrived at the “LA railhead” (at least according to the tracking) on June 24th. I figured it would be at the store in a day or two so a couple days later I checked the tracking again and it was still at “LA railhead” (supposedly). On June 29th, I called Wally-World and asked about it and they put me on hold to “check”. About 10 minutes later the guy came back on the phone and said, “We lost it.” Lost it?!? How do you lose something that’s as long as a Ram is wide, almost 4 feet tall and weighs like 150 pounds? Anyway, he offers to order another one and I tell him no thanks, just give me a refund and I’ll look elsewhere.
I found one on Amazon, through one of their sellers, actually a few bucks less then Wally-World and also offering free shipping. I ordered and shut my computer down as we were going out to my son’s house for the evening. After I got home that night I checked my email and there, about 2 minutes after I ordered the thing, was an email from the Amazon seller saying, “We can’t get them from our supplier, here’s a refund.” Strike two.
So, the next day I went out to the local 4 Wheel Parts store about a ½ hour away to see if I could order one there. Yes, they said, and it was about $50 more than Wally-World or the Amazon place but they could supposedly get it, but shipping was $140.00! Yikes! BUT…if I was willing to wait until they got their regular order the shipping to the store would be free. Ok, I’ll take that deal. So, the wait began. (I also ordered my winch from them, a Smittybilt 12,000-pound X2O but said I’d pick it up when the winch mount came in as I had no use for it without the mount.)
Anyway, long story short, I picked it up on August 9th, along with the winch.
So, I got right to work putting it on the truck, right? Wrong! In the meantime between ordering it and picking it up we had some “problems” at the house from a combination some termite damage, water damage from a botched bathroom remodel 10 years ago, and the roof starting to come apart from age and the assistance of the termites. So just before I picked this up our contractor started working on the house, which lasted until a couple of weeks ago (big ouch for the wallet there $$$. Yikes again!) So, while the contractor was there the driveway was totally occupied with his truck and equipment so no place to work on the winch mount/grille guard so it got stuck in the garage.
Finally, a couple days ago I got some time to install this thing. I had used a couple days prior to this to Plasti Dip my front and rear bumper and a few days for it to dry well before I started this install. I was supposed to get black bumpers when I ordered my truck but ended up with chrome and figured if I was going to fix that I’d better do it before installing this winch mount. As you may know, this winch mount installs on brackets that replace the tow hooks in a Ram 2500. If you’ve ever removed the two hooks from a 2500 CTD then you know 4 of the 8 nuts are really a bear to get to. Anyway, finally got them off and put the brackets on and when I went to put the winch tray on the brackets it was about 1/32 off and it wouldn’t slide on the mounts. I gave up for that day and the next day went out and loosened one of the brackets and wacked it with a rubber mallet (since the mounting holes were oblong and there was a little adjustment to play with) and tightened them down again. I figured this was the end of that problem so I slid the winch tray on the brackets and…suddenly realized I had miss-read the directions and the brackets were reversed, right on the left, left on the right. Shoot! So back under the truck to take them off and put them on the right way.
After that, the winch tray slid right on like it was supposed to, maybe why it didn’t want to go on in the first place.
Now, to mount the grille guard. A big awkward piece and I was wondering how I’d do that by myself as no one was available to help me at that time. It turned out that it was the easiest part of the install as I discovered that if I set the bottom rail of the grille guard on a chair and on top of a quart paint can it brought the holes right up to where they needed to be to allow me to slip the blots in. It was also wrapped in foam packing material really well so I had no fear of it scratching the truck.
So, to the winch now. Got that mounted after a small problem with the mounting of the control box as I stripped the thread as on one of the little mounting brackets and had to go buy another screw for it and a tap to rethread the bracket. And then I ran the wires up to connect to the passenger side battery and, of course, the hot cable was 18 inches short. Went to the auto parts store and found a 19-inch cable and connected it.
Whew…finally…and it actually worked too as I did have to reel in some cable that I pulled through the fairlead to connect the hook.
Anyway, I still have to mount my LED light bar on the grille guard but I’m waiting for some brackets I’ve ordered to do that.
I guess you can see why I called this a saga.
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