Here’s the idea I came up with for mounting the Harbor Freight 12k Apex Winch on the Open Trailer. After looking at a number of removable setups, most of them use a horizontal receiver, but that usually eats up some of the deck space. In my case, I had plenty of area between the tool box and deck, so deceided to mount mine vertically. The winch was a no brainer, it’s the same one I have on my Jeep, and I’ve really like it so far. The wireless remote works great and love that it has synthetic rope, since I’m not a fan of wire rope when I can avoid it.
The mount uses a Curt 49060 6 in Long, 2″ Receiver Tube which was cut to wrap around the frame for more support (Thanks Russell for that idea). I also added some 2×3 box tubing between it and the top beam to give it some more reinforcement. The fairlead mount was contributed by a buddy from his Jeep winch setup he didn’t need, I cut it up and welded it between the top square tubing and the deck beam.
I used some 3/8 steel plate with 2″ tubing welded to it with some small gussets to attach the winch. For wiring, I used Powerwerx.com SB175 Anderson Connectors. Inside the toolbox is the disconnect that comes with the Harbor Freight Winch, then I mounted the Anderson Connector on the bottom of the tool box. This ought to make it real easy to load a car up on the trailer when needed, and I can remove it for storage and keep it out of the weather.
For those times when I haven’t gotten around to storing the winch, I added an Eudora Waterproof Winch cover to keep it out of the sun and rain. This cover fits the HF Winch real good, and you don’t have to remove it to use the winch.
You might notice I used a quick pin instead of a cotter pin to attach the winch hook pin. That should make it quicker to remove the winch when storing it.
Note: Some links in this post are affilate links, because why not. They are all products I bought, have used myself and will note if there is anything good or bad with the product.