Hidden winch possibilities/got trapped in the snow for a day

How it sits right now:

 

To just level it out and do some light offroad driving, Bilstein 5100s are perfect. I love mine and I drive up to 60mph on backroads.

 

Leveling it out with Billy Bobs will result in harsh ride. Keep her as she sits or one notch up for ultimate suaveness.

My truck drove like a boat, like yours, until I had the front end rebuilt. The OEM sway bar was just hanging there, as the links were rusted off. All front bushings all squeaking and shot. Alignment all tweaked out. A mess. Hahahaha

I know this statement might bring scrutiny, but the rear ‘lifted’ an bit with these new shocks. Maybe about a 1/2”. Not sure exactly because I did not measure before, but can gauge from my trailer hook ups.

Anyways, if you want take a look at my build page for how she sits at one notch up.

 

Ok I will look at your build once I’m home. I just got off work.

 

I can disaree to agree.

Physics is not on your side. Physics just is. The pseudo technical terms that people who didn't actually study physics however are often debated.

Weight does not transfer. Weight is a force pulling mass towards the center of the earth. It is always the same while on the surface of the earth.

Sports cars used to be built with RWD simply because it used to be hard to have the steering wheels also be driven wheels. It persisted because of weight distribution advantages.

The ideal handling characteristics for a vehicle is one that neither oversteers, or understeers, a balanced vehicle. Front engine, RWD makes it easier to get the same amount of weight, and mass on the front and back end of the vehicle. Mid-engine, AWD, works even better, which is what you see in all the super cars.

A FWD sports car would have greatly superior traction to am old school RWD one. However, in corners it would prone to understeer because of being front heavy. This is true of all FWD cars actually, Superior traction, inferior cornering at the limits of traction, which for most daily drivers is fine, but its why cars don't generally spin out any more, they just plow straight off the road when they lose traction.

There is also simple physics. Each tire has a certain amount of traction it can use for either steering, braking, or acceleration. The forces are cumulative. Steer, and it reduces the available traction for acceleration, etc. With car 'sports' revolving around making turns at high speed with sticky tires on dry pavement, the advantage to having your steering wheels and your driven wheels separate outweighs better traction. Thats what the sticky tires and Aero are for, none of them are RWD for traction.....except of course, the ones that are also rear engine

When it comes to getting up a snow road, Sports cars are a pathetic joke of course. Its not what they are made for. That is why they can get away with it.

Again, physics, That jeep is at about an 70-80º incline. Its nearly vertical. An imaginary vertical line from its center of mass is almost going through its rear wheel. Very little of its weight is being applied to the rockface by any of the tires. Its not lifting off because of weight transfer, weight transfer does no exist, its simple torque and leverage, the geometry of the vehicle and the rock face.

Another way to think of it is that all the mass of the jeep is being pulled down still, but down is no longer towards the surface its driving on. The front wheel is not lifting 'up' anymore so much as lifting 'away' If for some reason you where backing up an incline, the rear wheel would be subject to the same problem, perhaps even more so depending on the weight distribution.

The effect is also exponential, which means on a moderate slope, there is very little change in the force vectors, they are still pointing very nearly towards the contact patch, as you get past about 45º they rapidly start diverging at an ever increasing rate until you hit vertical.

Now, of course our trucks are not sports cars. They are front heavy, so that in theory with a load or a trailer, the weight will be balanced, with about equal weight on the rear wheels and the front, giving them balanced handling. They have abysmal traction in RWD without weight in the back. (which can admittedly, be fun)

Placing chains on the rear wheels helps compensate for their poor traction, but you're just multiplying the weakest link of the system. Its a good thing but its not the 'best' thing.

 

Perhaps this will help:

Take hypothetical brick on wheels.

You can see that it appears that the weight shifts towards the right when inclined up to the left.

But that actual weight and its relationship to the road surface is identical on both wheels. Some of the weight from the front moves towards the rear, but some of the weight from the rear moves backwards just as much so the overall relationship does not change. That rear wheel has the same problem the front one does, the weight pulling on it is not in-line with the contact patch.

If the front wheels had more weight when horizontal, they will still have more weight applied to the road surface when angled.

(you can place the arrows anywhere you wish, they always point down and are always parallel)

 

2000strong,
I'm in Washington, too- Whidbey Island. Where were you stuck in the snow?
We traveled to Missoula at Thanksgiving and had snowy and icy conditions over the passes and on in to town. For fun, my son wanted to do a 230 mile trip to Skalkaho pass, in the snow of course! The Tundra was awesome in 1-2 feet of cold 9 degrees snow with the Michelin LTX M/S which are almost new.
I have rear and front hitches and have a winch mounted on a plate that slides into either the front or rear receiver for emergencies. I had them installed at Mann's Welding in Shoreline on Aurora Ave. You have to have long enough battery cables to reach the rear of the truck which is quite a distance on a 4 door! However, have never had to use it, happy to say.

 

I’m up in Ellensburg at the moment! I went for an adventure on a forest road in Wenatchee national forest. It was pretty grizzly coming home over snoqualmie pass lots of wrecks and even a overturned semi.

 

I was always told if you only have one set of tire chains, run them on the front because those are your steer tires? Made sense to me that you would want the most traction on the front for the tires that are pointing you where to go.

I’m really digging that winch mount on tundra solutions. I do work in a fab shop so maybe I can convince one of the guys to hook me up.