Source: 2013 Q2 Beartracks, Jared Yates
If you have built one of Bob’s designs, you are probably quite familiar with the small but mighty fairlead. That little steel spring clip that holds it together is pretty simple to install when you have easy access to the fairlead. I found that some of the aft fairleads were not as easy to get to in my project, so I needed an easy and reliable way to spread the spring clip for installation. I already had a set of spring clip pliers with removable tips, so I started with them. I removed the tips and modified the back end that usually isn’t visible, so that I’ll still be able to use the factory tip on spring clips. This was a two-step operation with the bench grinder and the Dremel cut off wheel.
The grinder provides a flat starting point, then the kerf of the Dremel cutoff wheel provides a groove for the fairlead clip to ride in. I found that the ends of the clips varied from one part to the next, so in some very difficult cases it might be necessary to do a little bit of grinding on the end of the spring clips to true them up. I only wish I had come up with this idea earlier in the process.