Stupid question.

What does the pto winch run off of? PTO is the winch right?

PTO stands for power take off. a PTO winch is an old style...

If you look back at some of the pics you can see where I have bolted a small gear box to the side of my tranny. This gear box is the PTO box, basically a very small transmission. Prop shafts then run from the box to the winch which is also gear driven and has a prop shaft input on the back case.

PTO's came in all shapes, sizes and forms. Pretty common here in the USA on many types of vehicles, mostly large trucks. On a Patrol a factory PTO box is very rare. A factory Nissan PTO winch even rarer but somehow I got 3 of them!!

PTO's were/are used for much more than just a winch. They came in front, rear and side...some in the same box and some not. On a Patrol there was front and rear PTO boxes. A side supposedly exists but I have never seen one. You can run all types of stuff off them from brush cutters to band saws to a winch. They are also often used to power hydraulic pumps and that can be used to run a hydr. winch.

In my opinion a PTO is the best winch you can get. Reason being is you can run it all day long and never tax your electrical system. It doesn't require stopping to let it cool like electric winches. Your shear pins in the prop shafts break before anything else which is a simple but effective design. Generally PTO winches are rated by the shear pin breakage point but they will often pull 3-5x what they are rated at. Since it is a gear box you control it with the motor and tranny and that just plain rocks!

The only down side to a PTO winch is that if you flip the truck or kill the engine you can not winch. In these cases a high rise, hand winch, come along or similar item can be used.

rear quarter cap ground back and cleaned up. Still a bit of work to do but nearly done.



inside of the wheel well....

Looking real good! Seems like the pace is picking up!

Well...I got some photos. Somehow the pics never seem to show how much work goes into this stuff though!



front PTO prop shaft, shortened about 3". The 3" was cut out of the shaft and both end grinded down to from =><= which was then tig welded together. Then it was filled in with the mig. The sleeve is a 3/4" ID pipe which we slotted then welded over the shaft. Still need to weld up the ends of the pipe to seal it up, and paint of course!



The enlarged hole in #1 cross member and the PTO prop shaft mount lined up to except the shortened shaft. Still need to sleeve this hole in the x-member...




body filler on, primed and sanded back...





Yea I know it looks kind of bad with black over green. But hey I just want it covered up for now. Getting a bit sick of sanding, grinding, bogg'ing and more sanding. Trucks is going to get painted in the future anyways. Notice the "racing" stripe on the tailgate, this is where we welded up the old hole for the license plate & light. No the body isn't perfectly straight, I didn't want that much bog on it and this is just a trail truck. You can see the side mounts for the rear bumper, this is what we should have done fish plates for on the frame. Oh well live and learn...





PTO winch cage finally taking shape. Still a ways to go though and plenty more grinding on it.

quote:

Originally posted by Fudd:
Somehow the pics never seem to show how much work goes into this stuff though!

They never do man, they never do, But at least you're taking the time to do this all right instead of building a hack job.

hey thnx DR...

but we do make mistakes. The rear side bumper mounts not being done with fish plates for example. And my MQ does look kind of ass right now with the black over green. But oh well it was that or plain primer. It is going to look like this for awhile too until I get around to painting it.

That PTO winch looks soo good

Thanks!

Today was pretty much test/fun day. To much work lately means I needed some fun!


Pto winch with rope finally on it.


getting ready to go hit the trail...


testing the winch....which turns out to have a prob. Front prop shaft which is in the sleeve is hitting on the sleeve. Getting a bit of vibration in the shaft which makes it worse. So got to tear it all out and fix this but it does work, just doesn't work right yet!


tight fit here....






Other than the prob with the PTO shaft everything seems sweet. Obviously I need to deal with the tail pipe which will happen sooner or later. The sway bar tore it's self out of the rear mount on one side today. So on the trail we removed it all together, been planning to take it out just hadn't yet. Seems to flex a bit more with it out. I also took a pretty hard hit to the front diff. On the side of the cover, doesn't seem to have caused a leak but may need some repair. Hope to have a diff skid on before I go out again.

Seems I need to deal with suspension next. Leaves stick to far out in front and are a low point, known that all along. Thing is they are taking hits now so needs to be dealt with. Same type of prob in the rear, leaves long and low making them vunerable to hits, especially on drop offs or decending shelves. I don't plan to run short leaves and SoA should helps this prob but something more will likely be done to the suspension.

Spring unders can take some hits, don't worry about that.

That winch mount is a thing of beauty.

I like how you addressed your hi-lift handle from falling down with zip ties

Nice! Got the same gear ratio as the front?

Yup...will be getting a 4.6 R&P for the front with this diff. Front gets re-geared when torn down for locker, CV's ect.

Pretty stoked on this diff. Fully rebuilt, disc conversion, set up for e-brake on rear discs, ARB locker, 4.6's....pretty sweet.