After much whining from me about sore knees, sore back, blah, blah - my wife bought me an Apex Auto Click for Christmas. It's been used precisely twice....
I use a Skoda Scout for stalking, and in at least one in three cases, we can get the vehicle close enough to a recovered beast to be able to do a suspended gralloch.
I installed the Apex and away we went - it allowed a standing gralloch. Then came the 'but'....as we drove away, the boot lid was showing 'open'. After checking it, nothing was obviously wrong but no matter how many times I re-closed the door, the light wouldn't go out. Stripping out the tailgate at home revealed that the sensor had been moved by the anchor point mechanism of the Apex. We checked it all over again, put everything back in place and assumed it was a 'one off' incident. I even checked that I hadn't had a Homer Simpson moment and fitted it incorrectly, wrong way round, whatever....
Another beast, another gralloch....same result. Another hour to strip the back end of the car, fix it and get on.....result? The Apex Auto Click is in its bag and hasn't been out since! After consulting with a good friend who's a VW specialist, he expects people could potentially have the same result with the majority of the VW range of vehicles with tailgates. So I do know of an Auto Click......very low usage, and can be prised out of the current owner's hand for a financial consideration.
Nowadays, I pick my spot to gralloch with care - nice soft spot for the knees, usually on the hill face with the beast's head down. I also have to admit (like FreeForester) that I prefer to remove or split the 'H' bone which is a lot easier on the deck (at least it is for me...
) and clean everything out ASAP, but, each to his own method. I have seen people do a suspended gralloch and do a beautiful job, but I think I'm too set in my ways these days!
