How to build a portable trailer winch - Harbor Freight Badlands 5000

how's it going guys i'm working on a new project that i thought might be kind of interesting so i am working with a uh i've got this badland zxr 5000 winch picked up from harbor freight and you know for all the kind of shortcomings of harbor freight you know tools these winches actually get good reviews so pretty decent deal of course i use the 20 off uh harbor freight coupon when i bought it and my plan is i want to i want to do a couple things with the switch my primary plan is i'm going to set up a um a removable um a removable system so that i can actually put it on my trailer for towing you know vehicles and equipment and whatever up on the trailer um this is a it's a thousand it's a 5 000 pound winch which when you figure um you know rolling weight of a vehicle when it's actually on its wheels uh this by itself will probably tow i would think probably most vehicles up onto that trailer but then it's got i think it's got a 50 or 60 foot cable on it so if you double it back and actually use a snatch block um you can actually get up to 10 000 pounds with this winch which is way more than enough to pull anything on the trailer that i'm going to use and then i've got another plan for this too where i'm actually going to set this up in my shop to be able to use it um as a winch inside my shop but i'll save that for another day so i've got the winch got some various pieces of steel i've got a receiver hitch i've got some two inch pipe some plate and my plan is um i know some guys will we'll put this up on we'll set this up on a trailer and then just use just put power directly to it to um you know actually to actually run the winch i want to actually be able to use it with the with the hand remote which means that it's got to have the solenoid and everything hooked up and these atv winches if you get the bigger winches that are made to go on a vehicle i think they actually kind of somehow that all the control actually hooks onto the top of the winch it's not like that with these smaller ones so i'm gonna i'm gonna create an enclosed system so i can have all the electronics and actually keep that with the winch itself and then have it so it'll it'll just move around as an entire unit so i'm not exactly sure how it's all going to come together yet but i'll show you the trailer that i'm going to put it on so this is the trailer that's going on it's an 18 foot that's a 16 16 plus two do a little equipment trailer and i've got pretty good attachment point here in the front i think um that i'm going to be able to get a receiver welded on to i'm going to have to kind of reinforce and build some brackets and things but i think that this this is going to work out pretty well so that's my uh that's the trailer we're going to go on to now i just have to figure out how to put it all together so for the portable winch itself i'm envisioning something like this so i've got this two inch i've got this two inch pipe or you know two inch pipe two and square tubing um that will i'm gonna this is the plate that the winch goes on so i'm gonna weld this plate to this to the tubing so then the winch will sit on there like that it'll have the fair lead in the front of there of course and then because i want this to be a fully self-contained unit so this ammo box is a nice size to fit all this junk so here's the solenoid that goes in there um i've got what is everything here so the yellow and blue run to the winch so what i'm going to do is drill a couple holes coming out of this box i'll run these cables out and then those those will permanently attach to the winch and then i've got [Music] um also attached to that solenoid is uh cables that go to the battery so my red and my black and it's got this big honking circuit breaker here um which actually is not probably really necessary in this particular application honestly i could probably just cut that off there and direct wire it but i won't i'll keep it on there it's not like this is going to be hooked up to a vehicle or anything that i'm worried about damaging but in any case um so we've got those and then i've got the actual controller wire and this will be tucked in there so this actually has two different controllers that come with it so there's the this rocker switch basically that's meant to be kind of permanently attached and i actually thought about maybe mounting that inside that box and that way it's just right there and i could kind of you know quickly grab it i'll see how much room there is inside this box once i get everything mounted it wouldn't be too big of a deal to cut a little rectangle in there and slip that in there and have that mounted on the side that actually might be kind of nice but primarily i want to use the corded this is like a six foot cord i think that plugs into this little butt connector and again i might just lay that inside if i want to get real fancy i'll actually drill a hole in the box and then this will stick out the side like that it's got a little dust cover weather cover on it and then i can just plug directly into the side of it so i don't know we'll see how elaborate i want to get that might be kind of nice to do there's the fair lead that goes in the front of the winch like that so anyway the goal this is all the stuff that needs to go inside this box so the goal is i'm going to take a piece of plate i'm going to cut that off basically the length of this box i'm going to mount this box back there and then like i said the cables will come out of the side of the box the yellow and the blue that actually attach to the winch so those will just come out of the side of the box there and then this will just kind of be a nice little self-contained unit i may i've got some like one-inch steel pipe i actually kicked around the idea of maybe even making a like a wrapper on handle that goes around the bottom so i can just you know grab it and carry it real easily i don't think it's going to be all that terrible heavy so i probably won't mess with that but it might be a nice little added feature to do that just to be able to tote it around with so so that's the plan so i need to do a couple things here i've got to get this i'll probably first cut this piece of plate to the size of this box um get some holes drilled kind of get it all get it so it's ready to go together i need to determine how long i want this two inch this two inch pipe to be it's going to slide inside the receiver i don't think it needs to be uh too terribly long but i don't want to leave myself too short either so i'll probably leave an extra i don't know i'm guessing probably another six or eight inches probably something like that i need to drill a hole in there so that it can slide inside the slide inside that receiver and then obviously have a pin that goes in there so that'll connect it on the inside um get it all mounted up and then i think that'll be it and then once i get the the actual portable winch mount built then i'll go back and i'll work on getting the receiver actually mounted to the trailer that'll be the the last step that i do so let's work on cutting some steel so so this is the first time that i've actually had a use for my uh for my grinder since i built this grinder stand out of the rim and some extra stuff i had laying around the shop so if you're interested check out that video on building that stand there you go all cleaned up and ready for paint [Music] [Music] foreign do okay so here's my basic setup that is going to slide into that receiver obviously i don't know how long i want to make that i don't want it to be right on top of it by the same token it doesn't need to have a lot of extra length there so it's more weight to lug around i don't know i feel like maybe about an inch and a half or so is probably that feels about right and then in the hole how much pipe do i need back behind the old hole probably two inches or so i don't think i need any more than that so my cut will be basically there and the holes are going to be basically there i think that should work all right so i got that two inch pipe cut off and all cleaned up it is mocked up inside the receiver which i think is good so now i need to get a hole drilled in there to accept the pin [Music] so [Music] all right so i mentioned earlier but i think my sound was a microphone issue but i'm just kind of a backwoods uh not a professional welder but i think for what we need i think that's gonna hold up okay for this little winch it should be plenty strong actually so good to go all right so this now is set up box goes on there winch goes on there so i think before i do anything else with this i need to clean this up really good get some primer and some paint on it because i would like this to stay in decent condition and not just rust apart so i'm going to go ahead and paint it up good and then i can once paint's dry then i can get everything assembled case anyone's interested in seeing how i built that trailer hitch that i uh it's just a removable hitch that i put on the bucket of my tractor i'll try to leave a link to that video up above you can kind of check it out super handy just comes right off and on real simple super helpful for moving trailers around the yard okay so i'm trying to work through how exactly i want to mount this on the trailer um like i showed you before i'm just using this off the shelf uh receiver hitch these are pretty cheap i think this was like i don't know it's like 15 bucks or something can't really go wrong if you buy buy this is probably two and a half inch tubing and drill the holes and everything and i don't know it's just easy this way i've done this before so um i've kind of had a couple different ways that i've envisioned doing this and i think i'm gonna go pretty simple so um [Music] one of my challenges like most trailers this one has angle iron here that captures the front of the deck boards and um where this hitch goes so originally i intended to have it actually uh stick a couple of stuff stick a couple inches on board like that and i was gonna keep it up high um that way if i ever need to like slide up you know put a tractor bucket or skid loader bucket or something i can just barely slip it under there but i got thinking about that and if i ever want to change the deck boards on this trailer i have to be able to get this angle iron out and if i have this receiver sticking out onto the trailer like i originally planned i'm not going to get that angle iron out so changed my mind what i'm going to do is i'm going to cut this pretty short i kind of have this mocked up looks like about four and a quarter so i think i'm going to just cut this off here this is actually going to weld in way in the back like this so i can still get this angle iron out if i need to and then i'm going to take some of this two inch pipe and i'm going to cut a chunk here um that's basically going to go on the bottom so so this two inch i'm gonna weld this has got big c channel here i don't know what that is six inch c channel um pretty heavy stuff so i'm going to weld i'm going to cut it cut this piece of two inch then i'm going to weld on the front there down a little bit lower and then i'll actually weld this two inch to the bottom of my receiver and then i'll probably try to i'm gonna be a very good weld probably but i'll try to sneak a weld on the bottom of this this top tube too just to kind of stiffen everything up um and then i think that should give me all the strength that i need if i want to i might be able i could always put a couple of gussets with some angle iron on the side or just some plate or something if i feel like i need to kind of stiffen it up but i think that's kind of my general plan so i'm going to start i'm going to make some cuts and kind of mock some things up here and see if i can get this put together okay guys so i've got this all worked out um i took my i took my receiver and i've got a piece of two inch tacked onto there and what i'm going to do is this two inch is going to get welded to the c channel here and then i'm also going to try to get a weld across the top of the receiver um along the bottom of this uh this that round pipe there that tubing so it's going to stick up right along the bottom there and i've just got this tacked but i'm going to make sure i've got a really good solid weld along there that's that's where all the that's where the strength needs to be as far as the pull so um that connection there with that steel will be more than strong enough for this little winch that i've got and i think it should be strong enough that if somebody ever puts a you know a big winch on here it'll be able to take that pole as well and be a good strong connection so i got everything mocked up the way i like it's time to go ahead and get it welded in and make it permanent okay so i got that all welded on there got everything uh tied in pretty good and strong i think um i was able to get so this c channel here i've got a it's really difficult to be able to get the torch back in behind there and get a good weld on it um but i think i got it pretty good and then like i told you before i left this two inch pipe hang down about a quarter inch so i got a real good bead on the on the bottom side there too so you know when it pulls it's going to pull that way and that's where i think most of the stress will be and i got that welded up pretty good i actually thought about just cutting a couple pieces of angle or plate and weld them on the side you know right to the inside of the c channel if i did that that would kind of give it the ultimate strength but i don't think it's going to be necessary so i'm just going to leave it like this if i ever have a problem with it you know i can easily brace that in there and really give it some additional strength so we're going to let it go like that primed it up good last night throw a coat of paint on it let that dry throw another coat of paint on it and that'll be that'll be good to go all right so the next step now is i need to get everything put together on the mounting plate got this all i can't remember if i showed you that but i got this all painted up and ready to go so we need to get the uh winch mounted to the plate uh one with the fairlead which goes on the front there and then the uh my ammo box which is gonna have all the electronics kind of a mess in there i'll probably do that last so i think for now i'll go ahead and get started and uh get this winch mounted up and they sent they come comes with the hardware to do this and basically this thing just has um on the bottom side it's got nuts that are already set in there so it's just a matter of sticking some bolts and some lock washers through there it should be ready to go all right we've got the business end hooked up there now let's get this box the best way i'm gonna position this it's gonna go that way so my terminals are over here which are my yellow and blue all right so i'm gonna mess around with this and see if i can figure out how to get this all wedged in here and then i'm just gonna drill a couple holes in the side of this box then i'll run my my cables out that are actually going to hook directly up to the winch um and then we'll figure out how we get power to it okay so i've got the got my wires run through here that are actually hook up to give power to the winch itself drilled a couple holes on the side zip tied got those secured i've got that solenoid kind of positioned down in the corner down there so now the only thing i need to do is get power actually into the unit and before i put this together i just want to show you what i've got so um i just picked up a couple these are two inch um by i don't know i think they're quarter inch bolts and so my plan is i'm just going to i'm going to drill holes in the in the other side of the of the ammo can there and i'm going to run these bolts through with a washer and basically run a it's going to be like this i'm going to run it through um like this and i'll attach it on the inside so basically what i'll have is a post that's going to be sticking out on the side of the can i'll have two posts sticking out and from there i can run jumper cables clamp on really easy without having to mess with the cables and stuff and it'll be quick quick attachment i think so that's my plan i just need to get this positioned and drill a couple holes and get these put into the box all right so got everything put together hooks on wires are run here are my my two terminal posts coming out of there that i've got bolted to my cables on the inside that lead into the solenoid and i'm happy this box is just big enough i was able to actually even get the controller this is uh i think it's a six foot controller and that fits in there just perfect the box squeeze is closed so i'm gonna go ahead and hook this thing up i haven't tried it yet so we're gonna give it the maiden voyage right here and just using a jump pack of course this would work with you know battery cables two and that was kind of my idea my my hope is this is a uh it's a 1400 um cranking amp jump pack one of the bigger ones so my hope is is that this this battery pack will be enough you can see that on camera dewalt my hope is this battery pack will be enough to get a vehicle loaded i think it'll be plenty to be able to do that but i also i als i have 20 foot jumper cables in my truck are they 20 are they 25 i've got jumper cables in the back of my truck so if i um if i ever had to i can run cables back to the trailer too i've done that with my dump trailer before it must be 25 foot jumper cables because i can actually reach the um the toolbox of my my dump trailer so that should work for this winch as well but um anyway so got hooked up uh let's see it's on free spool take it out go ahead and engage it give us some power here and let's see we do awesome the free spool works really nice yep go pull out that re-engage of course you can run it out too you take tension off so hot dang that works great so now the only thing to do is to put this thing on the trailer go ahead and uh hook it up to the mount and give it a give it a good solid test i think the instructions actually say um to uh to kind of pre to set this cable you want to put like 500 pound you want to you want to drag it all the way out and put 500 pounds on it to really um you know set that cable in there because now it's just you know it's just kind of hand wound i guess or it's loose to make sure that it doesn't bind up so i'm going to we'll get go ahead and get this hooked up on the trailer and i'll hook something up to it i don't know what i'll hook up maybe my tractor uh car or something and we'll put a pull on it and we'll see how it does all right guys so here we go final product a couple things and i apologize my neighbor dogs are barking over there but um so i did go ahead and because i wasn't happy with the way this was welded on just the the lip of that c channel i did go ahead and put some strapping on there so i put some i think that's inch and a half by 3 16 strapping on each side now i'm 100 um satisfied that that's going to be nice and strong i didn't have an extra hitch pin so i just stuck a bolt back through there but there you go fits on there nicely time to work pull out the controller there you go controllers plugged in oops wrong side come over here [Music] take my jump box right so we're fired up there now um a couple things i got kind of working against me here first of all my jump box is not 100 charged it's close probably 90 and i'm gonna do a full pull out on this thing to get this cable properly seated so there's a lot longer pull than i would normally do so i have no idea if it's going to last well one other thing too that i didn't show you before i took some pipe to some half inch round pipe that i had laying in the shop and i welded that back on there because of the pitch of this trailer uh when it comes out it's going to be rubbing on the back of that and i didn't really like that rubbing on that edge so i put that on there that way i can kind of float across there and protect that cable so i'm going to uh pull this out most of the way i'll go ahead and engage it and then we'll kick this thing in and see how we do when i'm pulling my my kubota tractor here it's probably i don't know it's probably 2500 pounds 3 000 pounds probably 2500 so not super heavy but definitely plenty enough to set that cable and kind of give me the idea i should show too so i just have it hooked right to a chain on the front of the tractor so if i had a real heavy load i do have a couple of these like heavy duty snatch blocks and i'll just put that in the line and i would run that cable back and because i've got the c channel here i can just hook the end of my winch cable right to the c channel i have a perfect place to pull back on a snatch block so i think that'll work really well for a heavy load who knows maybe i'll meet up this tractor i guess i'll find out here in just a minute so i got my brakes brake set on the tractor probably help if i if i let that go i'm actually dragging the tractor up the gravel driveway [Music] [Music] gotta steer it a little bit i miss my ramps just somebody helping me here [Music] that's all right we'll get it i'm gonna move the camera and show you here the this is working perfect you can see the cable is running across the top of that bar that i welded on there that's working perfect just my steering again i'm missing the ramp so i guess this is where it would be nice to actually have a wireless remote and i could be on the tractor all right so we're at full pull now adjust my wheels again my front wheels are just about too narrow for the ramps on this equipment trailer sorry to be kind of careful my load it's not a big deal when i'm driving it but so you can hear it's pulling pretty hard what i would say is if i was doing i think i would definitely use my my snatch block if i'm gonna when i use this there's really no reason not to it gives you twice as much pulling power with that so we're basically using the you know the 5 000 pound pulling power now with that snatch block then it's capable of pulling 10 000 so i'll definitely use that so you can kind of hear a change in the sound there a little bit we just got the front tires up over the over the lip of the trailer there so all right so there you go it's on and i'm just looking at this so this is what i'm really happy about i wasn't sure how this pack would work so i'm at 12.3 volts that thing is [Music] um i can't remember where i started i was like 12.9 i think something like that so i used very little power um out of that battery pack as you can see it's still got still showing four full bars which is which is really good i'm happy about that so um i might do a test i don't need to do that with you guys uh on camera but i think i might go ahead and throw that snatch black on there just kind of play around you know it'll move twice as slow that way but get twice as much pulling power and you know i pulled it up there okay but i'm just envisioning if you know like i said this thing's probably twenty five hundred three thousand pounds so if you've got a you know if you've got something that's five six thousand pounds you're definitely going to want to use that snatch block uh and again this is a little five thousand pound cheapo winch and the way i've got this built there's it's engineered so i could easily put a heavier duty winch on there and um worst case i might need to slide my my uh plate back for the box for my electrical box if i would do that to make more room for a bigger winch but simple enough um but hey i'm really happy i think for what i have invested in this thing this is this is going to work out really great you know it's one of those things that you don't use you don't need it all that often but when you need it boy it's going to be really nice to have the other thing too i should point out i just remembered so pulling this thing up here and you won't be able to tell us on camera but my gran my driveway is at a really steep uh incline so i was actually pulling that thing all the way uphill too i just realized so that you know just just makes me that much happier i think with with the way this thing turned out so anyway i think that's it done project happy with the results and uh really glad i took the time to build it so appreciate you guys watching the video do me a favor as always like and subscribe and i'll see you in the next video all right guys i was wrapping up that video but i decided i'd go and turn the camera back on i just since i've got this all set up i was curious to see how this would work with the snatch block so just kind of show you how kind of the layout here so same thing chain got the block there and i've got the cable double back and i just hooked it right onto the front of the trailer there onto that lip of that seat channel is a perfect anchor spot so i'm gonna go ahead and give it a run this way just kind of curious of you know what the difference might be in pull if you're bored go on to the next video if you're interested stick around let's see how it does i've got my brakes set again doing that i'm dragging my truck down the hill and the tractor up the hill [Music] so [Music] so so [Music] so [Music] that's my battery box blinking oh maybe might be telling me that it's i'm putting too much stress on it maybe i need to give a little rest i don't know we'll keep going [Music] so all right well there you go the weight's off so it's an easy pull from there so i don't know how well you could tell that on camera with the audio but definitely i could tell that it pulled easier obviously it's slower um just because it's doubled up there i shut that off it might be that i've had it turned on too long but anyway there you go demonstration with the snatch block still very happy that's probably the way i'll load it just because it's a lot easier on the um on the winch that way less stress on it so it's a hair slower coming up on on the trailer but it's you know it's worth it so anywhere there you go see ya

Channel: Adam J

Views: 46,628

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

Keywords: trailer winch, mount winch on trailer, atv winch on trailer, removable winch, portable winch, winch for car trailer, winch for equipment trailer, winch for tractor, battery pack winch, harbor freight winch, badlands 5000 winch review, harbor freight badlands winch review

Id: meKWKHrHT6U

Length: 40min 44sec (2444 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020