# swing tongue (before or after winch stand)



## btomas (Jun 29, 2010)

This may be too late but here's my two cents, since I have installed a swing tongue.  It's easy to install and a great convenience.

I believe you would find installing after the winch to be Impractical/unworkable and likely unsafe. 

First the practicality:  Every time you go to fold the tongue you would have to undo the winch to boat connection and likely have to remove weight load on the front stop.  Remaking these connections and reloading the front end could be a real pain.  Depending on the front stop/winch configuration, it would likely prevent you from even being able to swing the tongue.

Now the safety: the hinge is designed to provide strength for a straight pulling load.  I believe a vertical load provided from the stress of the winch leveraging pressure from winching the boat up and holding it with any weight could create forces the hinge is not designed to handle.


----------



## firecat1981 (Nov 27, 2007)

Too late, I did it in front of the winch stand because the winch stand was too large to get the right angle I needed to clear the bow stop.

I ended up calling 5 different trailer shops, 2 never even thought about doing that, one said no because they didn't know if it was safe, and 2 said they do it all the time and it works great and unhooks and reloads easily.

So then I called Fulton directly and spoke with them. They said there is no problem with mounting it after the winch stand as long as it is still within the speced 48". As far as the forces being applied while winching, the tech said that won't be an issue as long as it doesn't exceed the rated weight of 5000lbs. well the winch is a 1200lbs winch on a 1500lbs trailer so I would have been ok. Only thing is getting the angle right so it swung away which put me over 48 inches do to the giant winch stand issue.

So basically, if I could have done it, it would have still been safe and much more practical then how it sits now, which might make the garage door by maybe an inch or 2.


----------

