How much room do you need? I am trying to figure out this before i mount a winch on a truck.
Whatever the trailer can handle. Our RGN and side dump have the kingpin within 18" of the front, our hoppers are set at 30" I think.
Well....it’s a little more than kingpin to front of trailer. More a combo of where the kingpin is sitting in relation to the front corners when you turn or jackknife the trailer. Even if that clears you may have an issue with the air and electric lines getting hung up. A flatbed or van with a 30-36” pin setting has a corner that will swing a wide arc in a turn which is often seen on OTR trucks with the sleeper beat up because they had the trailer tucked in nice and tight for minimal aero loss but forgot when they made a tight turn.
I have a low mount winch but most trucks have there winches up high. I hate to mount it then redo it later.
Doug. for whatever it's worth, heres a couple pics of the truck I had with the winch. Dave
King pin setting has to do with bridge weight.
I think i will make it so i can remove my winch if i need to Started taking it apart freeing up and making sure its good.
Measure diagonal from the centre of the king pin to the outside front corner of the trailer. That (plus a bit for clearance) is how much space the trailer will need to turn when you jack-knife it 90 degrees and not hit whatever you have mounted behind the cab. So take your same measurement from before and see where it gets you going forward from king pin position on the 5th wheel.
I was looking to find out if trailers were some what the same from king pin to front of trailer. My winch is made to set low it could be mounted so it wasnt as tall as the 5th wheel but most truck winches are set up high. If i mounted it low i could build a removable roller taller than the 5th wheel or maybe a roller that used the king pin hole.
My international truck used to have a winch mounted right behind the cab. It had about a 5' long extendable, wrecker type pole mounted to its base. It folded up to the headache rack, and then you could lay it out when you needed to winch something. I think it had a holdback for it on the headache rack and a chain. It kept the cable out of the 5thwheel and kept the winch low. I think I've got the boom and winch still in the weeds, we removed it to mount a wet kit hyd. tank, I'll see if I can get a picture of it. It actually worked pretty slick. Old owner of the truck had set up a cable control for the clutch and a fwd/rev lever just ahead of the rear tandems so you could run the truck and winch from outside, and could see what you were doing.
I would like to see that set up .I did some measuring. Its 84" from 5th wheel hole to back of cab my van trailers are 55" pin to corner. I need to measure some more trailers.