If you are using a common "shackle", there is no need to hunker down or tighten up the cross (or closing) bolt, just screw it in finger tight until it stops.
BTW, since writing my previous post, I have used the sxs 4,500 lb winch to pull my tractor out, up a 25 degree incline, when it got its front end stuck in some slick organic mud in a spring fed area of the mountain that rises from my back yard. I anchored the back of the Honda to a large Jeffrey pine tree, as the Honda would have otherwise just been dragged down hill. The winch line was then threaded through a snatch block on the rear tow bar of the tractor and back to that shackle on the Honda front bumper.
I got in the tractor with the wireless winch remote, and proceeded to drive it slowly in 4 WD reverse out of the mud. Worked like a champ!! No signs of bending or pending failure at the bolt on shackle mounts. I was just tickled I didn't need to call another neighbor with his tractor to rescue my sorry butt!
BTW, I got the tractor stuck trying to help the wife who had raked up a ton of pinecones. There are three springs that flow constantly from the mountain onto our property, along with a good sized aspen grove, so there lots of biomass from plant growth over the centuries . . . some of the stickiest mud you can imagine.
