Bed mounted winch ideas for pulling up heavy stuff?

Hello all,

As the title says, I've been spit-balling ideas for a few months now on an idea to mount my 3k winch in my bed to load bikes or other heavy junk. I don't plan on using it for recovering my truck. I had a bad track day 2 weeks ago and if my buddy didn't have a trailer I would've been SOL getting my bike in the bed since it couldn't turnover.

Now has anyone made or bought anything that would support a 500-650 lbs pull? I've seen those universal mounts that use the bedsides to support the pulls, but considering our truck beds are seemingly whimpy, I'd imagine this is a bad move unless anyone has tried this before.

My plan based off of ideas from the interwebs:
I was thinking of cutting out 2 holes at the head of the bed closest to the cab and using some round tubing to make a double A-frame-like structure that would be welded to the frame and some gussets on L-brackets to the nearest bed bolts for extra support. My plan would also be to mount the winch a little above bed height to alleviate some of the stress if the cable has to rest on the reinforced tailgate and since I'm on 35's with a 2in lift. I would then weld a mounting plate to face the winch to the back of the truck and route the wires to my batteries. I'm no engineer, but figured somebody would know if this would be idea.

I'm open to any ideas or input anyone has on this topic. Thanks for reading.

 

I would think something not permanently mounted would be better, and then instead of ran to the battery, just run to the trailer plug.

 

First I would give some thought to mounting the winch in a cradle mount . Making it simple to install and remove . This also gives you the option to upgrade to a different more powerful winch quite easy if needed.

Using a 2" receiver mount run cables direct from the battery . HOW often do you transport your bike ? Maybe a permanent Mount makes more sense for your use.

Do you know the amp demands of your winch ??

There are quite a few different ways you could go.

Do you ever need to haul other things in the bed so you need as much space as possible?

I would need to look at the bed mounting of a Double Cab of your year to be completely sure .

Feel free to DM me if you have questions

 

Trailer plug wiring is fused for 7.5A I think. Def not enough for a winch. Battery direct wire with an anderson plug would be perfect for the application though.

 

Even a little 3000 pound winch I think would draw more then the trailer plug wiring could handle .

No matter the fuse size.

 

This was just discussed on here not too long ago. Maybe you can get some ideas from this:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/bed-mounted-winch-lightweight-pulling.777826/

 

If you're good at welding and just need a fun project, check out "bed cages" for inspiration, and then dream up a winch cradle to add how you'd like. Seems like that'd be the "safest" bet for not ripping up a plastic and sheet metal bed.

 

That's the point I was alluding to.

 

I know very well .

I have seen very similar things tried!!

Even if one used the whole harness to carry the current.

 

When you say a 500-600lb pull what are you anticipating the gross weight of the item being? Is it reasonable to think the truck can even carry such item? How often do you think you would need this? Now let say you know have the winch, you got the item loaded, now how do you plan to unload said item? There may just be better options than mounting and using a winch in the bed.

 

Yea, I remembered wrong, the one I used just had long cables that went to the battery

 

When the Motorcycle is running they can drive it up the ramp.

The Op needs an option to be able to load and unload a Non running Motorcycle the weight of the bike may be 500 to 600 pounds .( gross weight) The weight of the pull could be calculated depending on the length of the ramp

you can winch the bike down or just roll it roll it down the ramp if the brakes have not failed.

 

For the bike I would just do a trailer, but he also mentioned other junk (to load bikes or other heavy junk) I would still just go with the trailer option.

 

Who knows a trailer might not be practical for what ever reason.

It would be a easier solution it might be a parking or storage issue.

It might be buying and installing a receiver hitch and trailer or using parts in hand.

I know at this time I could not buy a receiver hitch and trailer.

 

I think you A-frame type design would work well for the intended application. The long travel community has been using similar designs to mount extended shocks through the truck bed for a number of years now, perhaps some inspiration could be drawn from the mon mounting points, etc.

Here's the Camburg tacoma bed cage for reference:

 

https://www.discountramps.com/apex-receiver-hitch-crane/p/HMC-1000/

 

Any ideas you liked OP??

 

Think you're going to need a flatbed built from steel. Can't see a pickup bed, or anything you could bolt to the bed being strong enough to support a winch pulling a load.

 

I don`t think this crane would have enough height to lift a non running bike high enough

It defeats the idea of using the ramps to get the bike in the bed by winching.

 

I have attached Winches in a few different ways to winch loads on wheels into a pick up bed.

Less then 1000 pounds no real issues but needing to check the tail gate cables often.