Well I bought a harbor freight badlands 12000# winch just few minutes ago. Gave $279 had a coupon. I needed a winch to pull a few things around and to mount on the ranger, its almost finished by the way.
Figured I would be the guinea pig of the bunch and buy and test it out. Seems to be built well. Will try and hook it up soon Sunday afternoon most likely.
Got the 12000# one biggest they make figured the extra power might come in handy.

Let us know how it works out.

I will write up a review here on FordTruckFanatics.com once I get it hooked up.
The thing is a bit on the heavy side. I'll have to weight it guessing about 90#.
Going to make a Reese hitch mount so I can use it front or rear or on the tractors.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't pass it up for 279 bucks. I have a lot of scrap metal to pull on some trailers if it can get the iron pulled to a place I can load, it will pay for itself in one load.
So I figured might as well give it a shot.

Hook it to a medium sized tree and see what it does.

Ryan

I have a few Hawthorne trees I can try it on.

I used mine to suck on a Firebird that was sitting for 10 years in a field. I had to sit in the truck holding the brakes, because it was pulling the truck and trailer to the car. After I did that, it pulled it out of the hole it was in like it was nothing. True, mine isn't a badlands unit, but likely about the same.

Kind of the exact same situation I have the iron is half buried in a wet area I can't get onto to pull it out with out getting stuck myself. With a snatch block and cables I should be able to drag it with the winch.

There's quite a bit of cable spooled on there too, I don't have to keep resetting like I used to, one hook, straight pull, and it is on the trailer... Be ready to have to stand on the brakes to keep from being sucked in... it even skidded the truck a little doing that, but not too long.

I can anchor the truck to a tree to stop the sliding plenty around.

Got the winch mount finished tonight about 9pm and the winch mounted to the mount. Dang work and family takes up a lot of garage time
Hooked up the wires to a spare battery and spooled out the cable and spooled it in. The line speed is pretty fast which surprised me as the older Harbor freight winches were on the slow side.
Now I am working on fabbing up the front and rear receiver hitches for the truck.Also have a Idea for a temp bumper ball mount I am working at.
Will get a few better pics in the day light.
Need to pick up some wire and quick connectors so I can mount and un-mount it quickly.
Here is a bad cellphone pick of the winch.

Here is the review of the Badlands Winch.
Overall I am impressed with the winch.
THE GOOD:
It has pretty good line speed and plenty of pulling power.
I drug a car that was sunk down in the dirt to the frame and it never even struggled, all four wheels were locked up tight.
It will run a battery down so a better alternator or a dual battery setup should be considered if you plan on using it a lot, this is not the winches fault just the nature of the beast.

THE BAD:
The roller fairlead that came with the winch is to light weight for the power of the winch.I tweaked it testing it on a angles pull. I will beef this up with a few 1/4 inch plates and it will be fine.
The supplied power cables are a bit on the short side so if you plan on mounting it you may need to get longer cables.

From the limited testing of the winch I would recommend it for a cheap security out on a trail or pulling a few things around the house.
I would spend the money and buy another and for me the tightwad to say this is a thumbs up.

So if you mounted two (1 on each side) of the front bumper, and 1 in the rear bumper), you could winch yourself through the air over any obsticle.
If you could get the front winch lines across first.

I would recommend, in that case, putting the winch above the front-back center of gravity unless you want an up-side-down adventure.

Ryan

O'Rattlecan said:

I would recommend, in that case, putting the winch above the front-back center of gravity unless you want an up-side-down adventure.

Ryan

Click to expand...

3 points of connection ( Y ) shape keeps it from inverting.

That just might work if you could find a place to anchor to and three hand to run the winch controllers.

smokey said:

That just might work if you could find a place to anchor to and three hand to run the winch controllers.

Click to expand...

And several batteries

Nah, just run a monster quad alt set up...

Steve Meade has done it to power his audio system!

I'm considering the 2k atv one for my trailer.