Newbie help - P38A minor off-road prep

I think a lot more is made of P38 recovery points than might need to be the case.

If you're only doing recreational off roading what do you need a heavy duty recovery point for? Has anyone who claims you need that really looked at the standard eye on the front?

I know I have and that is one substantial piece of kit. I posted on a thread a few months back on recovery eye options and decided I was going to fit one. I stripped off the bumper and had a look at whats there. I can tell you that's no simple tie down strap you find fitted to most cars. It is more than capable of taking any recovery force that an occassional off roader is going to find himself in. Ok, it might not be up to repeated kinetic recoveries at odd angles a serious off roader might find itself doing but for occasional use its more than up to the job.

I've had mine recovered from buried above the axles off the standard eye using slings and a JCB and snapped the (climbing)tow rope in the process. And I'd happily tie off it again tomorrow.

As regards a winch mount, for what its worth here's one i fabbed for myself last month. And even though I intend to use a pulley block to make up for the weediness of the winch I didn't bother adding an additional towing point in the mount, even though it is only a case of drilling a hole, as I'm perfectly happy with the capacity of the existing eye. BTW the bumper fits back on perfectly, the picture was taken before I tightend up the bolts, scruffy and all as my rangie is I wouldn't send it out half dressed!

Nice job Spud

Very neat job SpudH. What size is that winch? It is,as you say, not a big `un but does fit in well behind bumper, whereas a bigger one wouldn`t.

gtland said:

Very neat job SpudH. What size is that winch? It is,as you say, not a big `un but does fit in well behind bumper, whereas a bigger one wouldn`t.

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Its a 4,000lb winch.

Any of the experienced guys will tell you that for a lump as big as the P38, 8,000lb is the minimum you should consider with the factory Warn being a 9,000lb winch.

But I don't intend winching myself up/down a rock face on a regular basis and if I do get myself rightly stuck I keep a pulley snatch block off a trawler in the back so that I will get in effect a really slow 8,000lb one.

This setup suits my activities perfectly as where I normally get stuck is when I drop two wheels stupidly off the edge of a forestry track. Very often I'm still able to go back and forward, just can't get the front wheel up. Mud tyres would help a lot but I do too much road work (25,000/year split 70/30 on/off road) to go much more aggressive than the Pirelli S/T's fitted.

My criteria were for it to 1) Cheap, 2) be strong enough to be able to pull me out when I've lost traction on the flat, and most importantly 3)for it not to impinge on the approach angle which if you look at the state of my front bumper you'll see I need all I have
I picked up the winch at a car boot sale for £100 so thats cheap, crappy and all as it is (horrible chinese manufacture!), I think it will be able to do the job and as you can see I've not affected the approach angle at all. The clincher in the end was just how neatly it fitted behind the bumper. I didn't have to cut a whole pile out of the back of the bumper to make it fit.

That would be my biggest critiscism of the factory setup, its a serious winch but it seriously cuts the approach angle so you're going to need it more often than if it wasn't there.
I saw the same on a G4 tricked out RRS, it was left with the approach angle of an Audi Allroad.

Well said. It does seem to tick all the boxes. No sense at all in spending thousands on a huge piece of kit that will be performing at half power, and, as you say, ruining approach angle, and maybe getting nasty looks from MOT testers.

Thanks Spud. I must admit the eye on the front looked pretty substantial to me but then again the car weighs almost 3 tons and given my lack of mechanical know-how I really wasn't too sure. I'm not planning on doing any really bad stuff so hopefully all I'm going to need is a bit of help occasionally when it all goes very wrong. With a little luck I'll not need to be picked up by the nose and lifted bodily out of a hole or as you say be hauled up a rock face.

There's still a few jobs that I need to sort out and rather than paying out for a new bumper and recovery points (if I could find/make one fit that is) I have perished air suspension bags that will need changing soon and new pads/disks in a couple of thousand miles to think about. Not to mention the obligatory oil leaks, although these I'm tempted to leave as they are fairly minor and it's probably a lot cheaper just to top things up occasionally. Most of them have been stopped by caking the bottom in mud and creating a ceramic seal over them all. I knew all that splashing around a few weeks ago would come in handy for something.

Thanks for all the help and advice everyone. Unless I have a major disaster and the front existing eye lets me down badly, in which case I will just sob quietly to myself and pray, I think I'll leave things as they are and spend the money as it becomes available on the running repairs.

As far as off-roading goes the tyres seem pretty good from what I've seen so far and they'll get another mudding at Kirton next weekend just to make sure. Other than that a bit of low ratio, determination and luck will just have to do the job as I'm not planning on any other major mods as such. Rock sliders possibly just to protect the door sills a little. Actually I did take the rear seats out to lighten the load a little today as they will probably never be used. Also it made a little more room and it easier to get the bikes in the back. Now I can just wheel them straight in and out. The two seats weigh amost 50kg and every little helps with fuel and performance. Now if I could find a way to shed that as well I might be on to something.

Many thanks and very best regards to all.

Pappy

996TURBO said:

RR-EVOLUTION should release a commercial version before the summer.

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Oops looks like i forgot you guys

Well done 996Turbo, that looks like an excellent solution. I hope you get to sell a few.