building my front hitch
 

The other day i somehow ended up with a free winch, (yeah i know i'm pretty lucky :shrug:), and i was going to make a receiver for it for a front hitch (but that's later)
I picked up a good reese hitch from a buddy for $20.... now the question is do you guys prefer of welding or bolting the hitch on?? I'm just worried if i use some grade 8 bolts they might brake if someone toes me out of somewhere or if i use the winch.
I'll post pics as it comes along (if it ever gets a little warmer out instead of the teens and twenties haha)
thanks guys

I welded mine on my old 01, but I always prefer bolt on. Easier to mod, remove, change, etc.

That said, my Warn came with 4 grade 5 bolts to mount the winch itself. I've heard that it is so the bolts bend before breaking (5 vs 8), but that's just internet speculation from others.

If you use some 1/2" grade 8 bolts, I would not worry about breaking them, you could hang your truck from one.

Edit: depending on how you weld it vs bolt can make a huge difference on how strong it is, so you would really have to be more specific. Either way your best bet is to put the weld or bolt in a tensile not shear position.

I welded mine on, honestly it was for strength purposes. I didn't want to take the chance of it ripping off.

If you have good welding skills you could do it yourself pretty easily. Luckily my sisters fiance is a certified welder, so I let him stick weld it

Yeah my best bet is to take off the bumper and to see what my best bet is bolting vs. welding. The only problem is that its down pouring here today.
I do have a nice mig welder at work and all the other necessary cutting and grinding tools and i also do some good welding. So I'll take it off at work tomorrow and go from there

could i weld a hitch to the top of the frame rails? i also got a hitch and want a front reciever...getting body lift so thats y i wana put it up top

You can. I'm pretty sure that's how Shane put his on

he had a front hitch meant for a front...i dont...i still gota grind down the welds the hitch plates had...

better off using a rear hitch lol

Mine is a modded rear hitch

x2. For my front hitch we used an old jeep hitch cut to size and welded to the top of the frame rails. The perfect height for a bodylifted truck.

Yeah, i used a rear hitch from a silverado and a friend did all the work cutting and welding. i just held the hitch up when he needed me to lol

im havin a hard time cuttin the old mounting plates off tho...other than that itll most likely work...i hope itll be high enough after the body lift....

Why not wait until the body lift is done?

thats what im doing....getting it ready for when the lifts done...then attack the front end with it...its a 10k lbs hitch too:D

The sheer strength of a half inch SAE Grade 8 bolt is 14,730 lbs. You will have 4 of them holding the hitch to the frame, this means that you would have to have a dynamic load of well over 58,920 lbs in order to sheer those bolts (Keep in mind the friction of the hitch against the frame). Your hitch pin will snap well before this point.

im just gonna weld mine to the frame

The frame or the hitch will fail before the bolts will.

That's encouraging... I've got 6x 1/2" grade 8 bolts holding my rear hitch in place and I was going to use 4x 5/8" grade 8 bolts to bolt for a front hitch & my bumper... I think that should hold up to anything I'll ever throw at it.

The hell are you using to cut?? Metal chop saw or shoot, even a careful operator on a 4.5" grinder with a cut-off wheel would get the job done nicely.


Roughly you're making this...
Attachment 93333

From these...
Attachment 93334

So it fits here...
Attachment 93335


(or 3" up on a BL'd truck). TEST FIT TEST FIT TEST FIT the bumper before fully welding the stuff together!!! There's both the Y and Z axis to worry about so remember that.


In addition to my above quotes from another thread, I also wish I would've just made it bolt-on. It's easy enough using nuts welded to small plates that slide into the holes in the frame holes. Did that on my little brother's hitch that he later sold as a 'kit'. We made it for 7/16" hardware though.

If I could also do it again, I would've made the hitch stick out of the bumper farther. The pin is so flippin' far back it's a pain and I can't insert a normal ball hitch because of it and putting my plate insert in is a whore and a half to slide the pin in.

Yeah I came to the conclusion that I'm just going to bolt it on. I took my measurements last night and going to start hacking and welding my hitch tomorrow.

I welded mine because I don't plan on removing mine so there was no need to make it a "bolt on" setup