Our 6X6 Sportsman 500 rear winch configuration

[Pete]

Hi y'all. We're not even from Alaska, however the amount of help we've gotten from your forum just by lurking the last couple years has been incredible. Just wanted to pay it forward and try to post something helpful for whomever may find it useful.

Thanks Pam for the membership.

I'll try to post this a couple different places when I get a chance.

We've searched extensively and haven't found a single rear winch setup for the old style rear chain drive/shaft front drive Sportsman 6x6's. Not one thing on Gurgle images, zero aftermarket ideas, as well as one-off custom jobs, although I'm sure the latter exists somewhere. So, this is how we did ours. I'm hopeful this will help anyone else that is trying to do the same is all. If you have a chain (rear) drive 6x6 and have ever gotten to the point you can't winch forward, can't back up, and don't have a buddy to winch/drag you out, you already know why we pursued this. I can go into more detail upon request, but the pictures should be explanatory enough.

Key items are 1/4" 2X2" angle iron for the box support and massive hinges to replace the original weldable door style hinges. 1/4" flat stock for the rear winch mount also. Also reinforce your dump box's frame wherever you see fit.

Have a good day y'all.

Pete

[Pete]

Pictures update.

Old wood rack made for a nice campfire one night.

Still need to to make the canoe racks and tailgate. Then powdercoat, or paint if too costly.

[Pete]

Tailgate and canoe racks been done for about a month now. No sense posting crap pics 'til the rust deterrent is in place I figured. Tailgate latches are De-Sta-Co 323-R's.

My scantily clad model is not for hire (sleeps too much on the job).

Happy 4th y'all who celebrate it.

[theultrarider]

Nice work! Looks good and very functional. Perfect.

[cwoods]

Good job! Looks nice and like it will do the job perfectly. I'm going to use my bed and rack this moose season then my plan is to get a spool gun for my welder,practice on some aluminum welding then ditch my stock bed and fab an aluminum flatbed making it stretch further forward with removable aluminum sides and tailgate.
I will have to have the seat pan cut on the backside to shorten the seat a little and have it recovered. That's the plan anyway...... Then the bed and steel headache rack minus the led light bar will be up for sale if anyone needs one. Should be a fun project.

[Pete]

Power Dump Box

This went together end of last summer sometime, well the first version anyhow. Pretty self explanatory again, so I'll just let pictures do the talking. Concentric makes the linear actuator, 6" stroke (5.32" actual), 1,012 lb dynamic push/pull, static load rating of I believe 3,500 lb, IP rating of 65 (more like IP100 after covering it in 100% silicone). Northern Tool sells it, but I'd recommend going directly through Surplus Center seeing as it is cheaper through them, and it ships directly from Surplus Center in NE even if you buy it from Northern.

Initially, we kept the box's subframe angle/channel steel, just relocated the cross members to make room for the linear actuator's shaft. Well, the canoe rack got caught on a couple trees and proved that those little pieces of angle needed to go.

The linear actuator runs off a winch contactor and is controlled by a handlebar toggle, as well as a Warn wireless controller given to me by a good friend (duhibrokeit).

I think the heaviest thing we've had in the back would probably be a full 55 gallon steel drum which was ratchet strapped to the "headache rack". The actuator pushed the box up without even sounding like it was struggling. Granted, that's only 500 lbs or so.

This one below is a clickable video.

















This is what the first version looked like, with the relocated original pieces.