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Yup, the front and rear loops are way overbuilt and will be safe. The issue with the incident you noted was using a tow ball. A good explanation is here on why that is a bad idea, especially with US style tow *****:
Yup, the front and rear loops are way overbuilt and will be safe. The issue with the incident you noted was using a tow ball. A good explanation is here on why that is a bad idea, especially with US style tow *****: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rHvQykNt2M
that Factor55 item is a good option but requires a receiver. It still amazes me that every single defender sold doesn’t have accessible front and rear recovery points and a 2-inch receiver as standard. I mean, they all have cruise control, and not everybody uses cruise control.
@Bjs1234 Can you elaborate on why you should "Never use the screw-in recovery eyes off road."? I was just thinking about getting a second one instead of mounting recovery eyes. Is the issue with inadequate strength for "kinetic" recoveries, but they're fine for regular "tow" recoveries?
They are not rated for off road recoveries. Lateral or sudden forces are outside its design. On-road recovery is all they are designed for.
Failure at the screw threads and/or long shank would be likely given enough lateral or dynamic loading.
All the force goes through the shank. About 1" diameter.
With the recovery loops each is fused with a base plate anchored to the core of the vehicle with 4 bolts each at ~125 ft lbs of torque. A very different animal. They really are a must have.
On-raod recovery loop screws into the OEM base plate
Looking at the exposed rear of the Defender in the @GavinC post, you can see that serious pulling on the tow hitch is going to be a bad idea. The center of the hitch is 7.5" below the bottom of the rear cross member so there is a huge lever arm hidden behind the back bumper. Items like this:
won't help. It's still like you have an 8" drop hitch which is what failed in the video above. This is why the recovery eyes (be they off-road loops or screw-in eyes) are mounted where they are: No nasty moment arms.
I still don't see what is wrong with the screw-in eyes for any (on- or off-road) recovery work I'm likely to do. A quick calculation of the sheer strength of the threads of the screw-in eyes comes out greater than 20 tons. They are wildly over-engineered like so much of the Defender, which is why we love Defenders! True, LR specifies the screw-in eyes for on-road recovery only, but is that just marketing? If LR published a strength that was comparable to the off-road recovery eyes, then that would cut into sales of the off-road eyes. Who would buy them? Well, me for one, because they look so meant. I just have to persuade my better half that we really need them.
Having gotten myself into a pretty dicey situation requiring two winches from other vehicles (one to the front point and one of the rear points) to extricate me from my stupidity I can honestly say it's the best $230 ish I've ever spent. Fun little install project too.
I would not have liked to rely on an on-road recovery point not rated whatsoever for off-road recovery.
They might just work great until they don't. You might get recovered or you might find out rather suddenly how over engineered they are. For me, it's just not an area where one can or should compromise.
Having reliable rated off-road recovery points on these vehicles should be a given. Either from the factory or in my case, installed after purchase. I'm amazed the Defender is not built and marketed with them standard. In an era where so much import is placed on vehicle safety, for the flagship iconic off-road vehicle for JLR to be built without basic essential safety kit, with no extra cost to JLR, is bananas.
^^ Especially given that many people come to the Defender from Jeep, where the Wrangler gives you two front and one rear recovery point, both without restrictions, on even the lowliest model in the lineup. And I paid $24,480 for my 2014 ****** Wheeler Edition, and that was $4000 more than entry-level in Wrangler world at the time. Point being, it must cost very little to add these things at the OEM level. And even if it costs JLR $200 (which it doesn’t, no way in hell) just raise MSRP by that amount and make us pay for it.
^^ Especially given that many people come to the Defender from Jeep, where the Wrangler gives you two front and one rear recovery point, both without restrictions, on even the lowliest model in the lineup. And I paid $24,480 for my 2014 ****** Wheeler Edition, and that was $4000 more than entry-level in Wrangler world at the time. Point being, it must cost very little to add these things at the OEM level. And even if it costs JLR $200 (which it doesn’t, no way in hell) just raise MSRP by that amount and make us pay for it.
I would argue (possibly incorrectly) that the cost to make and fit the 2 rear tow eyes is less than the singular on road recovery eye.
The former is just two parts of cast metal. That the latter is three, all of which have to be machined to give them the required reverse thread.
I would argue (possibly incorrectly) that the cost to make and fit the 2 rear tow eyes is less than the singular on road recovery eye.
The former is just two parts of cast metal. That the latter is three, all of which have to be machined to give them the required reverse thread.
Maybe there are other factors.
You may very well be right, I hadn’t thought about that. But at any rate, it’s a tiny cost delta in either direction.
And, even though a tiny fraction of Defender owners* will ever need those hooks EVERY Defender owner thinks they look cool! Plenty of Defender design elements were added for coolness rather than functionality or utility.
*I know you’ve had to use yours at least once, and so have I. I don’t think I’ve told this story on here. Last August a formerly hurricane, now tropical storm made its way to our cabin in western NC, where I was staying at the time. It raged all night long and died out by morning. I wanted to go back into the forest and upstream a ways to check on the dam up there that feeds the 3 intakes for the 3 pipes that keep fresh water in the pond for the fish. I drove in and found the dam intact but the dirt path I had to drive was washed out. I went across it, checked the dam, and started backing out (there’s no turnaround). I slipped off the track into some muck with my right rear tire, at the washed out place. So I pulled gently forward and tried again, but there was now a foot-deep tire rut leading off the road and into the watery muck. So I pulled forward again, told my imaginary companion to hold my beer, and gave it some gas in reverse, figuring to power my way in a straight line across the washout and the rut I’d created.
Nope. The truck just followed the rut right into the muck, only now I had momentum and managed to get both right wheels sunk in it before I could stop. Well $h!t.
There was no winching forward so I walked back to the cabin and got my hitch-tray winch. Hooked it into the receiver, fed the rope around a nearby tree behind the truck, gave it the beans and nothing. The winch just stalled. Okay.
Broke down and called my neighbor to bring his 4WD farm tractor. He brought it and hooked my 12,000# recovery strap to the tractor’s tow bar. The strap tightened and quivered and the tractor started spinning all 4 tires — on solid ground — and never could get enough traction to pull me one inch.
So Jim drives the tractor back to his house and returns with his Bobcat compact tracked excavator. This time we rigged a lift strap by shackling two ends of a short piece of the strap between the two recovery points on the Defender, with enough slack that the middle of the strap was about 4 feet above the bumper when pulled tight. Then we fastened that to the bucket of the excavator and Jim began to lift. The 12,000# recovery strap shredded! I couldn’t believe it.
Jim always keeps chain in the cab so I fashioned another lifting “triangle” from chain, Jim lifted the rear of the truck out of the muck and began backing up while I steered and gave it gas till the fronts were back on solid ground and Jim lowered the rear.
After that I have supreme confidence in those recovery rings out back! Wish I had photos but I was too much in the middle of it to take pics.
You may very well be right, I hadn’t thought about that. But at any rate, it’s a tiny cost delta in either direction.
And, even though a tiny fraction of Defender owners* will ever need those hooks EVERY Defender owner thinks they look cool! Plenty of Defender design elements were added for coolness rather than functionality or utility.
*I know you’ve had to use yours at least once, and so have I. I don’t think I’ve told this story on here. Last August a formerly hurricane, now tropical storm made its way to our cabin in western NC, where I was staying at the time. It raged all night long and died out by morning. I wanted to go back into the forest and upstream a ways to check on the dam up there that feeds the 3 intakes for the 3 pipes that keep fresh water in the pond for the fish. I drove in and found the dam intact but the dirt path I had to drive was washed out. I went across it, checked the dam, and started backing out (there’s no turnaround). I slipped off the track into some muck with my right rear tire, at the washed out place. So I pulled gently forward and tried again, but there was now a foot-deep tire rut leading off the road and into the watery muck. So I pulled forward again, told my imaginary companion to hold my beer, and gave it some gas in reverse, figuring to power my way in a straight line across the washout and the rut I’d created.
Nope. The truck just followed the rut right into the muck, only now I had momentum and managed to get both right wheels sunk in it before I could stop. Well $h!t.
There was no winching forward so I walked back to the cabin and got my hitch-tray winch. Hooked it into the receiver, fed the rope around a nearby tree behind the truck, gave it the beans and nothing. The winch just stalled. Okay.
Broke down and called my neighbor to bring his 4WD farm tractor. He brought it and hooked my 12,000# recovery strap to the tractor’s tow bar. The strap tightened and quivered and the tractor started spinning all 4 tires — on solid ground — and never could get enough traction to pull me one inch.
So Jim drives the tractor back to his house and returns with his Bobcat compact tracked excavator. This time we rigged a lift strap by shackling two ends of a short piece of the strap between the two recovery points on the Defender, with enough slack that the middle of the strap was about 4 feet above the bumper when pulled tight. Then we fastened that to the bucket of the excavator and Jim began to lift. The 12,000# recovery strap shredded! I couldn’t believe it.
Jim always keeps chain in the cab so I fashioned another lifting “triangle” from chain, Jim lifted the rear of the truck out of the muck and began backing up while I steered and gave it gas till the fronts were back on solid ground and Jim lowered the rear.
After that I have supreme confidence in those recovery rings out back! Wish I had photos but I was too much in the middle of it to take pics.
Agreed. Tiny irrelevant cost difference either way.
That's a great story. Similar to my efforts in that I dug myself ever deeper in the slop with my efforts to get out. It doesn't take much to get bogged. Knowing when to quit and take a Mulligan is a tough one.
The final recovery sounds fantastic. you paint a very vivid picture. Sort of like a car wheelbarrow race in reverse. It's hard to get actual images when your up to your eyeballs in mud, sweat, and stress.
The joy when terra firma is finally met is truly wonderful.
08-12-2022, 09:28 PM
