1951 CJ3A ranch rig & maybe a little more.

The winch base is .375" flat stock that I had so I had to weld a few pieces together to get the size I needed.  I decided to tig weld them together because I haven't done any serious tig welding in years and my cataracts are bad enough I prefer the slower pace for this kind of work.  Also, I need the practice before I start on my roll cage.

I made the throat plate to hold the roller fairlead.  Turning handles on a manual mill is always good for the soul.  In small doses.

The big piece I needed I did the same way.  Took off weight wherever it wasn't necessary.  Everything else was just pieces of 1.25" x .1875" flat stock.  So the frame around the fairlead will be flush with the front of the bumper and the cable throat in the back will be flush with the back of the bumper.  I'll do the final welding once I have the bumper prepped to install the winch and fairlead mount.  Once that is finished, most everything you see here, save the winch, will be hidden inside the bumper.

In all, I'm pretty happy with this part of it came out.  To me, 35-lbs for a 5,500-lb single line pull winch with a burly mount and roller fairlead seems very respectable and more than enough for a 2,300lb rig.  Once it's in the 2" x 4" bumper, the winch body itself will only stick up about 1" above and nothing below the bumper. 

On the Jeep I managed to finish up my rotating shackle mount idea.  It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it for now.  This mount will allow the shackle to follow the direction of the load.  A little over the top maybe, but I love projects like this.

Doing a simple cross section analysis, the UTS should be a minimum of around 118KSI.  Well in excess of a alloy 3/4" pin lifting shackle which is usually around 50KSI.  The receiver insert is 4130 QTSR which I'll anneal the shoulders on before I weld it into the bumper.  The shackle mount insert is 17-4 stainless is the 1150 condition.  Has a minimal tensile of around 150KSI.  All this is an order of magnitude stronger than a 2,500 pound flatty needs, but it's really driven by the size of the shackle it needs to accommodate. It was a fun project and now I can finished up the front and rear bumpers.

A real work of art. 

Is the far gate hinged off the side of the post so it can be swung around out of the way when opened?

Shackle mounts are awesome as well. 

Thanks for sharing. 

Thanks, Ben.  Yes, the lower gate is hinged to the outside of the post so it can open 180 and lay flat against the fence.  The other is on center as it has to swing inward 90-degrees to the fence.  Takes some care mounting on the outside as once it's installed, you can't adjust the hang of the gate.  Then the brace pivot has to match to keep tension even on the gate through its opening.  This is all complicated by the fact that these gates are hung along the road which is on about a 12% grade.

Yeah, they're a huge time suck.  Those logs used for posts all came from our place.  They cured for at least a year, debarked them, let them dry a few more days, then juiced them up with my "Farm Sauce"*, then tarred the bottom 7' of them.  Sunk them 6' in the ground on top of a 6" pad of recycled asphalt.  Tamp in dirt every 6" lift and every 18" drop in a 90-lb bag of dry concrete.  Kind of the same way as on the windmill.  On these long span gates (say 12' plus), your normal H-frames and 6 or 8" posts will loosen up within a year.  I've learned that the hard way.  Since these are 18 footers, I went all in.  I'll take what I've learned on this and apply it to other big gate openings I have.

* "Farm Sauce" is 1/2 part real pine tar (Stockholm Tar), 1 part turpentine, 1 part boiled linseed oil, and 1 part diesel fuel.  Wood sucks it up, lasts a good while, and it dries nice, not sticky and it looks great.  I use it on everything that has a handle or lives outside.  Wood, metal, you name it.  Don't skimp on the pine tar, don't buy that crap they sell for horse hoofs, etc.  If it doesn't smell like a camp fire, it's not real pine tar.  IMHO.

Jay