Badlands Apex 12k winch

Sandevino · Nov 11, 2022

This winch is a bad mutha…

I got it mounted up to my Schrockworks bumper and 1/4” plate steel winch plate. I tensioned the synthetic rope and when snugging up the hook against the fairlead the plate flexed and I could visibly see the winch rock forward an eighth of an inch.

Of course, I’m thinking a mounting bolt isn’t torqued and I’m under the Jeep bumping the winch back and forth looking for movement. All mounting points have grade 8 bolts torqued to spec. When I saw the middle inside edge of the plate flexing I truly realized how underrated this winch truly is. Granted, this is a max force pull (neither side is moving) on the top layer which equates to around 6700# per the manual.

With the same bumper on my 2013 JK Hard Rock with a 12k Warn winch the plate didn’t flex.

ShadowsPapa · Nov 11, 2022

Sandevino said:
This winch is a bad mutha…

I got it mounted up to my Schrockworks bumper and 1/4” plate steel winch plate. I tensioned the synthetic rope and when snugging up the hook against the fairlead the plate flexed and I could visibly see the winch rock forward an eighth of an inch.

Of course, I’m thinking a mounting bolt isn’t torqued and I’m under the Jeep bumping the winch back and forth looking for movement. All mounting points have grade 8 bolts torqued to spec. When I saw the middle inside edge of the plate flexing I truly realized how underrated this winch truly is. Granted, this is a max force pull (neither side is moving) on the top layer which equates to around 6700# per the manual.

With the same bumper on my 2013 JK Hard Rock with a 12k Warn winch the plate didn’t flex.

LOL - when I pulled the guy out of the snowy ditch and it was cold and I was parked on ice and standing on ice, I was in sort of a hurry to run the rest of the winch rope back in. I let up on the button almost too late. The thing coasted to the bumper and I could actually see the bumper flex a bit. Dang, I could have really messed things up!
I was sort of reminded the show on TV where the truck driver stopped to help a guy get his car out of a deep snow bank. The car was in pretty deep.
The truck driver gave the car's owner the end of the chain and said "here, hook this onto a part you don't care about" and laughed as he walked away.
There's a YT video of a Jeeper going over rocks and stuff that were just crazy - I mean the forces were more likely to move the rock than for the Jeep to go up and over. He had a Badlands Apex 1200 and it twisted his winch plate, but got him out.