High strength front recovery brackets?

Does anyone know of a 'quality/safe' front recovery mount for D-rings etc, other than 'ARB'?

By quality/safe, I mean a front recovery bracket with a working/breaking rating of above roughly 12k.

Please note: I'm not referring to D-rings, but the actual mounting brackets. ARB is the only bracket I've found so far with a safe working load rating for serious recoveries .

 

Here's one from an earlier thread...

https://www.bpfabricating.com/products/tacoma-recovery-tow-hook

EDIT: Here is the thread link...

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/front-recovery-point.710538/

 

Stuff that's hanging on bolts alone - is always suspect..........

 

there's also the arb recovery point, rated to 17,500 pounds. not cheap though.

https://arbusa.com/toyota-tacoma-2016-on/bumpers-protection-equipment/recovery-points/

sorry, skipped right over the part where you mentioned the arb recovery point.

that's the only one i know of that's officially rated for the purpose.

 

As far as I know, that ARB caltrop is even tougher than most full winch bumpers.

That's the one if you want to yank the truck even if it were buried under wet cement.

 

The front lower crossmember is held down there by a pair of four sided, sheet steel boxes - and each side of them has a good sized hole in it. My guess is that they are intended to fail on impact without transferring significant damage to the frame section above. I made a drawing of the section and had one of my engineers look at the strength - each box is good for a little over 2X the weight of the truck. There is a tie-down loop on the crossmember used to hold the truck in shipment - chances are that it has a strength requirement based on the truck weight - likely dictated by the shippers or their insurers - 3 G's maybe.

I'm thinking if you want to get all you can out of that front crossmember (without deforming anything) - it should be a design that puts a shackle in both ends. I took the little closure boxes out of each end of the crossmember and inserted 1" thick shackle eyes - that fit tightly into the box end and are through bolted in place. A tree saver is then used to load both shackles. I've used this in straight pull situations - dragging a good sized tree, retrieving a stalled jeep - never in a full tilt, speed jerk.

 

Thanks for your feedback. I checked the BPFabricating bracket awhile back and I believe it's rated at 8,250. While certainly much better than the AVI Demon brackets (which I can't find any rating for), I believe 8k is still too weak for any difficult recovery. But my research would put the BPF bracket in second place to ARB's 17,500.

 

Home run .. Totally agree

 

Yep, I'm just shocked that as popular as Taco's have become that there aren't other options beyond ARB.

 

Thanks for your confirmation that I've missed anything <sigh>.

 

That's interesting to know. I'm looking at bumpers, but I really don't want to go down that path. I already have two modified jeeps and don't want to start another build project. It looks like the ARB is the way to go .

 

Thanks for the detailed info. I took a (layman's look) at the front crossmember and shipping loop. I agree it certainly has value and probably fine for minor very recovery loads.

I agree using both a passenger side (added) quality recovery point (I guess ARB) in combination with a right side recovery option is the safest option, as your photo outlines. As it stands now, my final plan will probably be ARB on the passenger side and the plan BPFabricating bracket on the drivers side.

 

DONE


Even ARB bumpers are Not recovery rated.

 

Can I bring a bit of sanity to this thread?
If you are absolutely super stuck, like buried to the diffs in sand or mud, it will take around .5X to get you out. Let's say you are dangling over a cliff at 90 degrees, it will take 1X vehicle weight to winch you up.
Now, let's say you are at the base of a five foot vertical wall and need winches up... Better start stacking rocks because nothing is gonna do that except a crane.
Be realistic. You truly need 1X your vehicle weight rating. No more.

 

What about mud- Do you think the same way about being mired in deep mud? Planning factors I've seen say 150% of vehicle weight if the mud is up to/including the body of the vehicle.

 

Let's say vehicle weighs 5K. Even if what you say is true, you need 7.5K recovery point which is really no big deal. Recoveries go bad when pulling wrong way or no experience.
To need 17.5K ARB means really bad really stupid really unfortunate recovery. But, it happens.
The recovery vehicle setup is more important than the vehicle being recovered. A 5K recovery vehicle will slide in park long before the 5K pull is reached. Recovery vehicles need mass, or additional anchors. Very seldom will you have to exert more pulling for e than the weight of the recovered vehicle.

 

@hiPSI -- makes sense to me. The other aspect of this is: you have to pay to play. If you are driving icy streets at the mall, don't spend thousands on recovery gear. If you are the sort of person with 5.29s and are locked in front and rear (and routinely out in the hinterlands), you probably should consider a more robust setup.

 

That's not correct. In vehicle recovery, mire resistance and slope resistance are added to each other. For example, being stuck to your frame rails in a muddy wash and having to pull the vehicle up and out of the wash with 45° banks is going to be close to double the weight, assuming that it doesn't get hung up on any rocks or trees hidden in the mud. That's also assuming that you're using a winch and juuuust enough force to get the vehicle moving, not any sort of kinetic recovery. Things get a bit trickier with kinetic recoveries since a lot of people seem to prefer the "pin it to win it" method and not the arm length/walking pace method.

I'm not even going to get into how much fun planning a recovery is when a trailer is involved

For those that are curious, chapter 4 of this .pdf is a good read:

https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN30978-ATP_4-31-000-WEB-1.pdf

 

I was going to bring some sanity to the thread. Yes, everything you posted is good and nice and technically correct. However, realism has to come into play here.
1. Remember the audience. 90% of the people reading are never ever going to get balls deep in a muddy wash on a 45 degree slope. Those 10% who do will already have robust recovery points. Most here have stock or cosmetic mods and that limits the recovery.
2. What are the chances that your vehicle will be facing the exact wrong way on the trail to get recovered at your recovery point? For me, that is like 100% of the time. So, at least a lot of the time you will be recovered from another point, like an axle or frame rail or hitch pin.
3. Using the Tacoma as a recovery vehicle is absurd unless it is a super light stuck. Many many mods have to happen to turn it into a proper recovery vehicle. When it gets bad, you call in people who know what they are doing and they will find a nice place to hook and pull you out. Even on a Yaris or Tesla.

 

1. Believe me, I'm well aware of the Larry of Suburbia factor of looking like you're ready for the apocalypse OP was asking about adding a recovery point and, to be fair, we really have no idea what kind of driving he's got in mind. ARB is one of those companies that people poke fun at. Yeah, their stuff is expensive. I'd be willing to bet that they have more actual engineers on staff than much of the aftermarket recovery gear industry combined though. Their frame mounted recovery point is legit designed and tested to work at many angles, it's working arc is from hard over to hard over with your front wheels.

2. So why bother with any recovery points? Having a dedicated forward facing recovery point makes as much sense as having a dedicated rear facing recovery point Also, winching sideways off of a frame rail or off of an axle is bad juju, nothing like bending the axle tube or frame rail to make your minor inconvenience of being stuck into a real crappy day. Better to winch off of securely mounted sliders for a side pull. Hitch pins carry a risk of bending the pin inside the receiver and then not being able to get it out, you're better off having something like a shackle receiver attachment, which would be a ... dedicated recovery point. In reality, having a solid slider setup, a front recovery point, a rear recovery point and a shovel will be fine for more than 99% of the situations most of us will get into.

3. Run what you brung. Dragging an F350 doublecab super duty with an 8' 1/4" diamond plate steel flat bed up a hill in snow? Yeah. That damn truck probably weighed in at twice what my truck did. My piddly 1st gen did that through judicious use of mechanical advantage (snatch blocks) and careful rigging. The other option was a four hour round trip and hoping to find someone in a bigger truck as there was no cell service. Any plan involving hope is a crap plan.

I'm not saying that the ARB mount is a panacea to all stucks. It's definitely a good quality tool that can be helpful in a wide variety of situations. Does it have it's limits? Yep. Is it worth the money? That's up to the buyer. You seem to be a talented enough driver that you're never stuck with a dedicated recovery point facing the right way. I'm not sure if I should recommend driving lessons or that you start a Youtube channel

Also, it's easy to read emotion into things that are written... know that there's no malice or anger in my comments, just a lot of experience and a background in mechanical engineering. The vast majority of my travels are solo, towing a trailer, with my family in the truck in remote locations of Washington, Idaho and Oregon.