I recently sold the Chevy 350 winch I've been using for the past few months. The buyer wanted to be able to stake it out on the ground whereas I'd been putting it on the tailgate of my pickup. To make it simple, I built a "sub-base" for the winch. The sub-base can be staked down with the nice yellow tent pegs from the camping section of the local Wal-Mart. Once the sub-base is secured, the anchor bolt behind the right side of the drum and the two wing nuts are loosened slightly. The winch is aligned so that the line winds evenly on the drum. Then everything is tightened down.

It takes a lot less time to get the winch perfectly aligned. Since you don't tear up the ground under the winch moving the stakes, the winch is less likely to move around under load. Works great, so I thought I'd pass the idea along. You could easily adapt it to your winches with metal bases.

The sub-base is made from 3/8" Starboard. It's a high-density plastic used in boats as a substitute for wood. An excellent material for outdoor use and very easy to work with.

As an aside, the set-up in my truck has the battery at the front of the bed with #4 welding cable leads going back to the winch. There's 24 feet of cable in the loop. The increase in power is HUGE when the loop is only 4 feet. What I've been missing!!!