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KOV Winch Mount for the Can-Am Renegade 800

13K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  1Bad1000Xxc 
#1 ·
One thing that you will notice when you buy your new Can-Am Renegade is that although it is called a "Utility" vehicle, it does not come equipped with a winch. After further inspection, you may see that it doesn't even have mounting brackets should you decide to add a winch and that the location behind the front bumper where one could go, is quite cramped.

Although we understand that Can-Am's classification of the Renegade 800 as a "utility" quad is quite a stretch of the terminology, nonetheless, it is a vehicle that many people will use for utility purposes or mudding. With that type of usage, it will at some point require that those individuals have a winch to it will fully suit their needs.

Interestingly enough, at the time of this article, Can-Am did not have an accessory in place to mount a winch in the front of the Renegade and we did not want to go with a generic winch mount. So, for our purposes, we had to expand our search. After quite a bit of searching around, we found a fella that actually makes a custom winch mount for the Can-Am Renegade 800. Although he does sell them on a sale-by-sale basis on a few different web forums, he can also be found selling them on eBay under the member name KOV24. His real name is Ryan Kahovec.

Tools Required:
  • Torx20
  • Torx30
  • Hancksaw or grinder
  • 10mm socket with 3/8 drive ratchet or wrenches
  • 13mm socket with 3/8 drive ratchet or wrenches
  • 15mm socket with 3/8 drive ratchet or wrenches
  • black marker
Design and Fitment:
We really weren't quite sure what to expect prior to receiving this product from Ryan since he was building it in his home shop. So, we remained open-minded until the product finally arrived. Upon initial inspection, we realize that Kahovec Industries was not your fly-by-night backyard builder. He did an excellent job in the development of this piece and the production quality is top notch.


From the factory, the Renegade has a support that attaches from the front bumper to the grill to prevent the grill from bouncing around in rough terrain. While some of the after-market bumper manufacturers do not address this support when they design their bumper, and just leave it off, the result is that the front grill flops around and can potentially cause damage to it. However, Ryan paid great attention to detail and was sure to fabricate a support for the grill since his winch mount requires removing the factory support.

Per the instructions that are provided with the kit, you must mount your winch to the winch mount PRIOR to installing the winch mount in your vehicle. We were able to do so in a matter of minutes and be on our way to installing the complete setup.


After removing the factory bumper and mounting the roller fair lead to it as instructed, we set it aside to actually mount the winch and mount. We quickly realized that for our WARN XT25 installation, the fit was extremely tight simply because that particular winch is not small by any means.

Additional Installation Notes:
In order to get the fairlead to mount in the bumper and sit down in it at the proper angle, the fairlead also needs to be notched on the lower side of it. We removed the bolts and rollers to make it easier to be able to grind this down on the bench grinder. The finished product of the fairlead after the grinding looks like this:


Also, the original grill support bracket must be cut to allow proper mounting to the provided support. The finished product after the cuts were made looks like this:


Something else to note is that some aftermarket bumpers will not work if you have installed aftermarket skid plates like Ricochet Offroad. Since the KOV winch mount does require mounting a fair lead inside your factory bumper, this could potentially be a problem for those of us that have in fact installed the Ricochet Offroad body armor designed for the Can-Am Renegade 800. However, Ryan thought of everything with his instructions and actually provided a paper cut-out for you to use to mark your front Ricochet bash plate. After marking the front plate, you can then use a jig-saw with a metal cutting blade to remove the marked area. Using the provided template allowed us a perfect fit with our Ricochet skid plates.


Overall Impression:
All in all, by following the provided instructions, the installation was quite simple. No special tools were required beyond basic hand tools and any amateur with a set of basic tools should be able to easily accomplish the installation. it was nice that a template was provided for those folks that have installed Ricochet skid plates so they know exactly where to cut-out a small area from their front skid plate without any guesswork.


The fit was perfect for the area that it had to go in and all parts lined up properly. Ryan Kahovec has obviously put a lot of time and effort in to designing the KOV Winch mount for the Can-Am Renegade 800 and perfecting his production process.

We consider this a must have for any Renegade owner that plans on using their quad to its full potential.

Contact Information:
Kahovec Industries
Ryan Kahovec
Saskatoon, Sask, Canada
1-306-222-6354
kov24_69@hotmail.com or
ryankahovec@sasktel.net
 
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