- First Name
- Rich
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2025
- Threads
- 3
- Messages
- 18
- Reaction score
- 25
- Location
- Antioch, CA
- Vehicle(s)
- 2024 Hybrid Tacoma OR
- Thread starter
- #1
Hey all,
My friend Leonard and I just chucked yesterday at the wiring, and this bad boy is now able to pull small children out of quicksand should the need arise!
Inspired by THIS THREAD which retained the OEM skip plate and required no cutting, I took the dive and bought the RC winch mount and drove down to HF and picked up a Badlands 12k. I've seen Matt's Offroad recovery using Badlands winches, and even a Warn engineer saying it's built really well, so yeah... don't knock it until I post back saying it failed horribly.
As is typical, you start out taking a bunch of photos, then just start cursing and getting hammers involved, and the thought to pick up the camera fades away, but I think we did a great job and got it done right!
Before shots:
Day one was me working alone. Leonard couldn't come out till Saturday, but I took the week of PTO to line up with my son's spring break, and had all the parts by Tuesday, itching to get to work.
Got the bumper off following this guide by caliraised:
Laid out the RC bumper and finger tightened everything:
They dont say to crank down yet, but be aware THESE four bolts will come back to haunt you, so I'd recommend getting them "snug" early if I could go back in time... tight enough they can still move around, but not loose to where you'll spend 15 minutes on each one just getting the bolt moved up the shaft:
Flipped this over and got the winch installed and torqued to spec (33 pounds I think? I checked the badlands manual for reference)
Got the little nutsert holder things in place (this comes up later):
Then got cute and thought I'd install the bumper ends at this point, too, but this was a mistake. You need to leave these basically dangling in place on the truck... at this point they aren't held to the truck by anything but gravity, and literally just kinda hanging awkwardly, but this is where they need to be.
SO DON'T DO THIS, YOU'LL JUST NEED TO UNDO IT:
So now I got my son to assist putting this assembly on the jack and hoisting it to where it would go, and realized it was going to be a VERY snug fit, so I made a bit room. This is the only cutting I needed to do, and is MAYBE optional, but I went with it, because why not. I'll show pictures of clearance,and again, maybe you don't need to do this. Badlands wants you to cut a crossbar UNDER the truck, but if you want to retain the OEM skid plate, you can completely ignore this (as the thread I linked above showed).
I trimmed this much of the hanging black bar:
And then angled it a bit further, and sketched out the part of the silver bar I wanted to remove:
Easy:
Hit the cuts with some Rustoleum, and called my son back downstairs to try again:
Bingo:
The clearances are tight, but nothing is obstructed or gets pinched:
The winch JUST touches that pipe, but is not deforming it at all. With my fingers I can push against that bracket and flex the pipe away, then let go and it comes to rest again. If that bothers you, you could probably tweak that bracket to keep it off the winch, but again, it's just resting against it. Imagine putting a can of beer on a table. It's not deforming the can or table, they're just touching. That feels about the pressure required to move the pipe to slide paper between them. One 12oz beer can. That's SCIENCE, baby!
A look from below, directly at the crossbar RC wants you to cut:
HERE's their install guide, pictures 7 & 8:
At this point I'm killing time until Saturday, so I began working on the winch extension that I've seen many do.
Again, inspired by Team Oil Drop who was the first that I saw do this, but I've seen many others since.
Taking off the handle from the winch, and affixing a way to get a ratchet linkage to "move" the clutch handle:
(Exodia doesn't mind, we're pals)
Had to cut a channel in the shaft for the goop (JB Weld) to escape, and scuffed up the shaft for better grip to the JB Weld:
wiped up the goop, and applied some SteelStik around the edge for good measure:
End of my solo day, you can see I had also moved the pedestrian warning speaker when I "upgraded" it, instructions found HERE.
...and so this is the part of the thread where the camera fell to the wayside, and we just plowed through the wiring. :(
My clutch assembly ended up not needing any universal joints to flex and bypass trim. It just went straight up from the clutch handle itself, which makes it VERY easy to turn. Most people put two universal joints in there to move around trim, but I just plowed through it directly, moving my horn a bit to the side:
There are two other pieces of plastic "on the way up" but a 1/2 inch drill bit is the correct size to allow these extension bars through, and that's not rocket science.
Final look:
I need to fabricate a handle to actually "turn" the clutch, but a little 3/8 wrench fits perfectly on that square, so I'll probably sacrifice one for the task. TBD.
For the wiring, we used full 1/0 wire, which was the biggest challenge. I've seen others get away with 2 gauge, but we went full hog. "If it's a job worth doing it's worth doing right" / "good enough usually isn't". The best I can do is show the route we took and pop a few panels back to show to end result, but we weren;t taking photos all day, we were busting our ass in the sun.
I followed the same routing as @jettaway did, but using chonkier wires:
Removing the stock wires from the Badlands also was helped by the extra clearance created by my trimming. If I did not do this proactive trimming, I'm not sure I would have been able to get the control box off and remove the default positive lead. Also, taking the control box off allowed easier access to the negative terminal on the back. We continued to follow Jettaway's routing in the engine compartment, again just with larger wires:
I left a few coils of this wire for a later project. I intend to put a distribution block in this empty space so I have a true run back (with 1/0 gauge) to the actual battery terminals, since the hybrid battery is under the rear seat.
to the firewall:
We routed off the AUX3 switch, and ran 16g wire along with the two chonky boys to the rear seat for a power interrupt solenoid I saw mentioned in another thread.
The run:
(we removed the seatbelt bolt and took off that piece, no photo, but made a clean run to the backseat. If smaller gauge, possible to fish it maybe? We just did it right.)
removed that trim also to feed it past the battery:
over to rear passenger, where we mounted the solenoid directly bolted to the trim piece:
Buttoned everything up, and cut the fairlead access channel in the bumper. I REALLLY WISH i had some photos of this, but I simply was moving too fast with the dremel.
Using the magic of photoshop, I can give you the general gist. Just held the fairlead up to my (detached) bumper, and lined up the middle, and just put a dot for each hole and traced the INSIDE of the fairlead:
this gave me the rough shape:
I cut this as a narrow slit from left hole to right hole, all the way across, and held it up to make sure it looked "generally good" then widened it to the height of the fairlead hole, ALL the way across. So one long hole from bolt to bolt, the height of the fairlead:
I did NO cutting on the "upper" bumper. Just a oval from bolt to bolt, barely taller than the fairlead gap, then buttoned her up, held the fairlead in place, and screwed the bolts into the nuts, held from behind.
This puts me in a weird spot, I know. If I want to remove the front, I'll have to remove the fairlead, since it's essentially pinching the front bumper between the winch mount and the fairlead. I've seen people make entire cuts that go ALL THE WAY AROUND the fairlead, so the bumper can continue to be as removable as it was, and when teh time comes I need to do that, I'll likely trace around the fairlead very carefully, remove the fairlead to remove the bumper, and then cut the full fairlead shape out of the bumper for the final reinstall... but for now I like how clean it looks. You can't see any cuts, the fairlead itself blocks any sight of cut plastic.
Anyway, the great reveal:
The final mounting also required the trimming of the RC armor, again, huge shout out to @jettaway for this:
You take their armor, and cut along the dotted line (after installing the nutserts line they say to do):
Clean it up, Rustoleum it, and install as Jettaway shows. What I show above is the garbage piece. You use the trimmed off bit to attach the OEM bumper.
Very happy.
10/10, would do again. Actively looking for women stuck in dryers, etc, to help pull them out. Let me know if anyone needs a good winching, and I'm available. Shout out to my boy Leonard for all your help, brother. Couldn't have done this without you.
<3
Rich
p.s. this wonky editor will nto let me delete this final image, so here's the exodia curse.
My friend Leonard and I just chucked yesterday at the wiring, and this bad boy is now able to pull small children out of quicksand should the need arise!
Inspired by THIS THREAD which retained the OEM skip plate and required no cutting, I took the dive and bought the RC winch mount and drove down to HF and picked up a Badlands 12k. I've seen Matt's Offroad recovery using Badlands winches, and even a Warn engineer saying it's built really well, so yeah... don't knock it until I post back saying it failed horribly.
As is typical, you start out taking a bunch of photos, then just start cursing and getting hammers involved, and the thought to pick up the camera fades away, but I think we did a great job and got it done right!
Before shots:
Day one was me working alone. Leonard couldn't come out till Saturday, but I took the week of PTO to line up with my son's spring break, and had all the parts by Tuesday, itching to get to work.
Got the bumper off following this guide by caliraised:
Laid out the RC bumper and finger tightened everything:
They dont say to crank down yet, but be aware THESE four bolts will come back to haunt you, so I'd recommend getting them "snug" early if I could go back in time... tight enough they can still move around, but not loose to where you'll spend 15 minutes on each one just getting the bolt moved up the shaft:
Flipped this over and got the winch installed and torqued to spec (33 pounds I think? I checked the badlands manual for reference)
Got the little nutsert holder things in place (this comes up later):
Then got cute and thought I'd install the bumper ends at this point, too, but this was a mistake. You need to leave these basically dangling in place on the truck... at this point they aren't held to the truck by anything but gravity, and literally just kinda hanging awkwardly, but this is where they need to be.
SO DON'T DO THIS, YOU'LL JUST NEED TO UNDO IT:
So now I got my son to assist putting this assembly on the jack and hoisting it to where it would go, and realized it was going to be a VERY snug fit, so I made a bit room. This is the only cutting I needed to do, and is MAYBE optional, but I went with it, because why not. I'll show pictures of clearance,and again, maybe you don't need to do this. Badlands wants you to cut a crossbar UNDER the truck, but if you want to retain the OEM skid plate, you can completely ignore this (as the thread I linked above showed).
I trimmed this much of the hanging black bar:
And then angled it a bit further, and sketched out the part of the silver bar I wanted to remove:
Easy:
Hit the cuts with some Rustoleum, and called my son back downstairs to try again:
Bingo:
The clearances are tight, but nothing is obstructed or gets pinched:
The winch JUST touches that pipe, but is not deforming it at all. With my fingers I can push against that bracket and flex the pipe away, then let go and it comes to rest again. If that bothers you, you could probably tweak that bracket to keep it off the winch, but again, it's just resting against it. Imagine putting a can of beer on a table. It's not deforming the can or table, they're just touching. That feels about the pressure required to move the pipe to slide paper between them. One 12oz beer can. That's SCIENCE, baby!
A look from below, directly at the crossbar RC wants you to cut:
HERE's their install guide, pictures 7 & 8:
At this point I'm killing time until Saturday, so I began working on the winch extension that I've seen many do.
Again, inspired by Team Oil Drop who was the first that I saw do this, but I've seen many others since.
Taking off the handle from the winch, and affixing a way to get a ratchet linkage to "move" the clutch handle:
(Exodia doesn't mind, we're pals)
Had to cut a channel in the shaft for the goop (JB Weld) to escape, and scuffed up the shaft for better grip to the JB Weld:
wiped up the goop, and applied some SteelStik around the edge for good measure:
End of my solo day, you can see I had also moved the pedestrian warning speaker when I "upgraded" it, instructions found HERE.
...and so this is the part of the thread where the camera fell to the wayside, and we just plowed through the wiring. :(
My clutch assembly ended up not needing any universal joints to flex and bypass trim. It just went straight up from the clutch handle itself, which makes it VERY easy to turn. Most people put two universal joints in there to move around trim, but I just plowed through it directly, moving my horn a bit to the side:
There are two other pieces of plastic "on the way up" but a 1/2 inch drill bit is the correct size to allow these extension bars through, and that's not rocket science.
Final look:
I need to fabricate a handle to actually "turn" the clutch, but a little 3/8 wrench fits perfectly on that square, so I'll probably sacrifice one for the task. TBD.
For the wiring, we used full 1/0 wire, which was the biggest challenge. I've seen others get away with 2 gauge, but we went full hog. "If it's a job worth doing it's worth doing right" / "good enough usually isn't". The best I can do is show the route we took and pop a few panels back to show to end result, but we weren;t taking photos all day, we were busting our ass in the sun.
I followed the same routing as @jettaway did, but using chonkier wires:
Removing the stock wires from the Badlands also was helped by the extra clearance created by my trimming. If I did not do this proactive trimming, I'm not sure I would have been able to get the control box off and remove the default positive lead. Also, taking the control box off allowed easier access to the negative terminal on the back. We continued to follow Jettaway's routing in the engine compartment, again just with larger wires:
I left a few coils of this wire for a later project. I intend to put a distribution block in this empty space so I have a true run back (with 1/0 gauge) to the actual battery terminals, since the hybrid battery is under the rear seat.
to the firewall:
We routed off the AUX3 switch, and ran 16g wire along with the two chonky boys to the rear seat for a power interrupt solenoid I saw mentioned in another thread.
The run:
(we removed the seatbelt bolt and took off that piece, no photo, but made a clean run to the backseat. If smaller gauge, possible to fish it maybe? We just did it right.)
removed that trim also to feed it past the battery:
over to rear passenger, where we mounted the solenoid directly bolted to the trim piece:
Buttoned everything up, and cut the fairlead access channel in the bumper. I REALLLY WISH i had some photos of this, but I simply was moving too fast with the dremel.
Using the magic of photoshop, I can give you the general gist. Just held the fairlead up to my (detached) bumper, and lined up the middle, and just put a dot for each hole and traced the INSIDE of the fairlead:
this gave me the rough shape:
I cut this as a narrow slit from left hole to right hole, all the way across, and held it up to make sure it looked "generally good" then widened it to the height of the fairlead hole, ALL the way across. So one long hole from bolt to bolt, the height of the fairlead:
I did NO cutting on the "upper" bumper. Just a oval from bolt to bolt, barely taller than the fairlead gap, then buttoned her up, held the fairlead in place, and screwed the bolts into the nuts, held from behind.
This puts me in a weird spot, I know. If I want to remove the front, I'll have to remove the fairlead, since it's essentially pinching the front bumper between the winch mount and the fairlead. I've seen people make entire cuts that go ALL THE WAY AROUND the fairlead, so the bumper can continue to be as removable as it was, and when teh time comes I need to do that, I'll likely trace around the fairlead very carefully, remove the fairlead to remove the bumper, and then cut the full fairlead shape out of the bumper for the final reinstall... but for now I like how clean it looks. You can't see any cuts, the fairlead itself blocks any sight of cut plastic.
Anyway, the great reveal:
The final mounting also required the trimming of the RC armor, again, huge shout out to @jettaway for this:
You take their armor, and cut along the dotted line (after installing the nutserts line they say to do):
Clean it up, Rustoleum it, and install as Jettaway shows. What I show above is the garbage piece. You use the trimmed off bit to attach the OEM bumper.
Very happy.
10/10, would do again. Actively looking for women stuck in dryers, etc, to help pull them out. Let me know if anyone needs a good winching, and I'm available. Shout out to my boy Leonard for all your help, brother. Couldn't have done this without you.
<3
Rich
p.s. this wonky editor will nto let me delete this final image, so here's the exodia curse.
Sponsored
Last edited:
. JK. Nice write-up. Thanks! Looks great.
