Over the past week I decided with the break in weather with spring finally trying to arrive, the Ice finally off the pond and the last of the snow melting away it was time I could roll the Pajero outside allowing me to see it in better light as well as get a chance to pick up the accumulating crap in the shop and sweep the floor.
It is nice to work outside once in awhile and one of the tasks was to start freshening the winch mount that is going on this. Way back in '89 when I did the turbo swap on My Gen 1 I soon discovered that even when the temps were below zero, one could get stuck in mud when driving through a forest. I was alone and the hours it took me to get out made it clear to me the value of a winch. A week later I had a shiny new Ramsey REP 8000 sitting on the shop floor. I pulled the guards down from the Monti to figure what I was going to do with it. I found the front of the frame has two 12mm holes vertically which seemed the would be useful.
So I welded up a mount from 2X2 box tube with channel steel wings to bolt to and simply welded the fairlead to the front of this. I do have photos of the build but they are on slide film and not so easy to find from my files in a drawer. That being back in the late '80s I do have a few shots from 2007 when the winch was transferred over to my 3.8L '95 SR I was building.
It sure ain't pretty anymore having decades of salt spray and early in life hours of being submerged with the many headlight deep water crossings we did when it was new.
Here it is under the SR 15 years back
And this week the mount, mounted up under the Pajero, soon to be blasted and have a new fairlead installed.