I have a new Rancher 420. I've been told the winch mounts aren't out yet due to it being too new. I did inquire with Gorilla Winch (one of the atv connection sponsors) and they said they aren't going to make a mount for the 420 because the winch cavity on the 420 is too small. Now I can't believe honda would make a utility atv knowing only a fly reel could fit in the front end. Has anyone put one on their 420 yet? If so, what did you get? Thanks.

 

Hmmmm haven't seen the 07 with the 420 but I would venture to say there is still plenty of room... Everybody has thier opinions mine is stick with Warn.

 

I am having the same problem. I did find that Moose makes the mounting plate. I had my Honda dealer order one for me and it should be in by Wednesday the 21st. I'll let you know how the installation goes?! A link to our previous discussion is below. If you check out the "Moose Winch Plate Installation (pdf)" link on the bottom of that page you will see that only 4 winches will fit. The highest rating of which is the Superwinch T2000. Have you heard anything about these winches. Are they reliable? More than likely, I will end up measuring the winch cavity after installing the mount and compare that to the width and height of the Gorillas to see if they will fit because I'd rather not put a Moose 1700 or a Warn 1500 on it and I don't know much about Superwinch.



Check out this discussion

 

Ok, so my Moose winch mount came in yesterday and I installed it last night. I was a piece of cake to mount. It requires removing the plastic bumper, taking the bolts out of the metal bumper (not removing) and installing 4 bolts to hold the mount plate on. 2 bolts attach the plate to the frame and 2 bolts (replacing factory bolts) attach the mount plate to the bumper and frame (3 layers of metal with one bolt).

I measured the cavity and the next step is the look up the dimensions of the Gorilla 2000# winch. The cavity is REALLY small, so I don't know excatly what winches (other than the few listed by Moose) will fit.

Here is a question to you knowledgable people. My buddy says that as long as you have a winch rated for double the weight of the atv and rider, then that is all you need. In this case, I would only need the Moose 1700#, which would be ideal seeing that it's a Moose plate and the winch is guaranteed to fit. What do you guys think? Is double the weight of the atv and rider sound right?

If not, I will continue my search to find a 2000# minimum that will fit.

Also, I took some pictures of the mounting installation and I will try to post them sometime today.

 

Thanks redphone. You are my guinea pig. If you can make something work, it is most likely going to be what I go out and buy. Keep us posted. What did the Moose mounting bracket run you? I think I saw them on the website for around $60.

 

I emailed a few people on the internet about the speciic mounting plate with no response, so I called my local dealer and had it there in 2 days. I paid $92.00 total. If you look around, you can probably find it cheaper.

 

My problem has not been the winch mount plate, but finding a winch to fit in there. Have you had any luck with that?

 

Warn makes a winch mount for the 420. It's not listed on the internet yet...or at least it wasn't several months ago when I bought mine. If you call warn technical assistance they can give you the part number and tell who is carrying them. I bought mine locally. Also, depite having a small mounting area you can fit the WARN RT 25 in there. That is the winch I installed. You can buy the winch at gowarn.com for (I think) 283.00. Mine has worked out well.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll check into it.

 

Ran into the same problem with my dealer. Said they didn't make a mount for it yet (6/07) when I bought the 420, so told him to let me know when they did and I would be in to get the winch on.
Hadn't heard from him so in August I did some searching and found that Gorrilla did make a mount. Ordered the mount and a 2500lb. water proof winch.
Was a little tricky to get it into the space, having to remove the plastic cover and loosening the metal grill guard, but all in all was an easy do and fits good with no problems.
Check again on Gorilla's web site,,,,it is there.
Am very happy with the winch and went with the syn rope, Great.
Have done some serious pulling with it and all going well.
Just got done putting on a warn snow plow with actuator to save my winch for that stuck sucks situation.