Harbor Freight Apex Predator Winch

[ldgregory]

Thinking of picking one of these up for my new 2023 PW as it was a fleet vehicle and didn't come with one. Anyone mounted one of these yet? Does it mate up pretty straightforward, or did you need to relocate the control box? I'm also trying to figure out the grill as I'll need to run the fairlead but it looks like a plastic grill with two parking sensors on it. Thanks in advance.

If anyone also doesn't have the correct lower grill for a winch, here's the part number:
68384298AA Lower Grille

[RustyPW]

I think the winch on the 4G and up spools backwards. So keep that in mind.

[ldgregory]

I think the winch on the 4G and up spools backwards. So keep that in mind.

Thanks I'll keep that in mind. So I swung by the dealer this afternoon to see if they could help me figure out the part number to order for the lower front grill. <sigh> That was a huge waste of time. They barely knew what a Power Wagon was. At any rate, I got to here on moparonlinepart.com https://parts.moparonlineparts.com/v-20 ... and-fascia and I can see the one I need, the top one right under the #2 but all three versions are number #3 and when you click on it, it takes you to the parts list but doesn't say which is which.

It could be 68384297AA, or 68384294AA, or 68384296AA. I could make an educated guess and say it's the first one because it's the top one in the drawing and the top one in the part number list, but who knows. I sent moparonlinepart.com a message to see if they could help me figure it out.

[ldgregory]

Following up as I finally found some time to install the winch and build the fairlead brackets. It mates up perfectly in the face-down orientation which means the winch is spooling onto the top. It lines up perfectly through the fairlead. In the face-down position it means the freespool lever is on the left (facing the front of the truck) and you can only get to it by getting your arm under the bumper. The wired connector and wireless enable switch are on the right side and you also have to get to it from under the front bumper. It's not terribly inconvenient, but if you've buried the front end of your truck, it's gonna suck to get to the lever for freespool.

Pics below.

[Mule007]

Nice looking install !! Really like the front fairlead look! Enjoy!

:

[TommyG]

Looks great. Nice job making it work. How much wiring did you have to finish?

[ldgregory]

Looks great. Nice job making it work. How much wiring did you have to finish?

The wiring is stupid simple, like, this is easily one of the simplest wiring jobs I've ever had to do on any of my trucks.

1. The positive wiring is already connected to the winch and wire loomed and only needed to be routed up to the battery. On the 2023 PW, there is so much space to route wiring up and keep it away from anything that could whack it or melt it. A bit harder on my dad's Ford V10 Triton that we installed the same winch on with an aftermarket bumper.

2. The negative cable needed to be connected to the negative terminal on the winch and routed right alongside the positive up to the battery.

That was it. Super simple. I opted not to install the manual battery disconnect switch, but basically, instead of connecting the two previously mentioned cables to the battery directly, they'd go to the disconnect switch and from the disconnect switch to the battery with the supplied cables. If I ever decide to add the disconnect switch, it would probably take all of 10-15 minutes to put it in.

There were two "difficult" parts to the install. The first was the lower grill (where the fairlead sits) was a full grill (my truck was a fleet vehicle and they deleted the winch when they ordered it I guess), so I had to order a lower grill from moparpartsonline.com that worked for the winch. At any rate, there are like 16-18 screws that hold the grill on and six of them are pretty much impossible to get to without taking the bumper off. The second difficult part was fabricating the fairlead brackets. I was going to try and buy them off the moparpartsonline.com site too, but the diagram completely sucks with regard to the drawings of the brackets, so I couldn't quite tell whether they'd work or not and I just decided to make them instead. The "difficult" part was the measurements with regard to depth (how far back or forward I wanted the fairlead) and ensuring the washer, crush washer and nut would sit on the flat part of the L-channel steel I was using (the 90 bend is 90 degrees on the outside, but is a slope on the inside.)

All in all, I'm really happy with the install. If you look at the top right of the lower grill, there is a place that I suspect the stock Warn winch has the wired cable connector sit. I didn't really check it out, but I suspect I'd have to do a bit of cutting and maybe a bracket to locate the included cabling onto the grill.

Couple pics, green arrows showing the three bolts (three on the other side too) that are pretty much responsible for having to remove the bumper to get to and one of my dad's truck with his Badlands Apex Predator install.

[RustyPW]

Looks great. Nice job making it work. How much wiring did you have to finish?

The wiring is stupid simple, like, this is easily one of the simplest wiring jobs I've ever had to do on any of my trucks.

1. The positive wiring is already connected to the winch and wire loomed and only needed to be routed up to the battery. On the 2023 PW, there is so much space to route wiring up and keep it away from anything that could whack it or melt it. A bit harder on my dad's Ford V10 Triton that we installed the same winch on with an aftermarket bumper.

2. The negative cable needed to be connected to the negative terminal on the winch and routed right alongside the positive up to the battery.

That was it. Super simple. I opted not to install the manual battery disconnect switch, but basically, instead of connecting the two previously mentioned cables to the battery directly, they'd go to the disconnect switch and from the disconnect switch to the battery with the supplied cables. If I ever decide to add the disconnect switch, it would probably take all of 10-15 minutes to put it in.

There were two "difficult" parts to the install. The first was the lower grill (where the fairlead sits) was a full grill (my truck was a fleet vehicle and they deleted the winch when they ordered it I guess), so I had to order a lower grill from moparpartsonline.com that worked for the winch. At any rate, there are like 16-18 screws that hold the grill on and six of them are pretty much impossible to get to without taking the bumper off. The second difficult part was fabricating the fairlead brackets. I was going to try and buy them off the moparpartsonline.com site too, but the diagram completely sucks with regard to the drawings of the brackets, so I couldn't quite tell whether they'd work or not and I just decided to make them instead. The "difficult" part was the measurements with regard to depth (how far back or forward I wanted the fairlead) and ensuring the washer, crush washer and nut would sit on the flat part of the L-channel steel I was using (the 90 bend is 90 degrees on the outside, but is a slope on the inside.)

All in all, I'm really happy with the install. If you look at the top right of the lower grill, there is a place that I suspect the stock Warn winch has the wired cable connector sit. I didn't really check it out, but I suspect I'd have to do a bit of cutting and maybe a bracket to locate the included cabling onto the grill.

Couple pics, green arrows showing the three bolts (three on the other side too) that are pretty much responsible for having to remove the bumper to get to and one of my dad's truck with his Badlands Apex Predator install.

2025-01-13_09-47.png
IMG_3611.jpg

[Bill2014]

Nice clean job!

[TommyG]

Looks great. Nice job making it work. How much wiring did you have to finish?

The wiring is stupid simple, like, this is easily one of the simplest wiring jobs I've ever had to do on any of my trucks.

1. The positive wiring is already connected to the winch and wire loomed and only needed to be routed up to the battery. On the 2023 PW, there is so much space to route wiring up and keep it away from anything that could whack it or melt it. A bit harder on my dad's Ford V10 Triton that we installed the same winch on with an aftermarket bumper.

2. The negative cable needed to be connected to the negative terminal on the winch and routed right alongside the positive up to the battery.

That was it. Super simple. I opted not to install the manual battery disconnect switch, but basically, instead of connecting the two previously mentioned cables to the battery directly, they'd go to the disconnect switch and from the disconnect switch to the battery with the supplied cables. If I ever decide to add the disconnect switch, it would probably take all of 10-15 minutes to put it in.

There were two "difficult" parts to the install. The first was the lower grill (where the fairlead sits) was a full grill (my truck was a fleet vehicle and they deleted the winch when they ordered it I guess), so I had to order a lower grill from moparpartsonline.com that worked for the winch. At any rate, there are like 16-18 screws that hold the grill on and six of them are pretty much impossible to get to without taking the bumper off. The second difficult part was fabricating the fairlead brackets. I was going to try and buy them off the moparpartsonline.com site too, but the diagram completely sucks with regard to the drawings of the brackets, so I couldn't quite tell whether they'd work or not and I just decided to make them instead. The "difficult" part was the measurements with regard to depth (how far back or forward I wanted the fairlead) and ensuring the washer, crush washer and nut would sit on the flat part of the L-channel steel I was using (the 90 bend is 90 degrees on the outside, but is a slope on the inside.)

All in all, I'm really happy with the install. If you look at the top right of the lower grill, there is a place that I suspect the stock Warn winch has the wired cable connector sit. I didn't really check it out, but I suspect I'd have to do a bit of cutting and maybe a bracket to locate the included cabling onto the grill.

Couple pics, green arrows showing the three bolts (three on the other side too) that are pretty much responsible for having to remove the bumper to get to and one of my dad's truck with his Badlands Apex Predator install.

2025-01-13_09-47.png
IMG_3611.jpg

Looks great. I wondered if there would be any prep from the factory other than the mounting provisions. Thanks for the pics/details.