I think you are on the right track with your alternator & cable choices. Your pan sounds almost identical to what I did on my '06 Silverado. I was just able to get the front receiver hitch from CURT a couple of weeks ago and have not tested it yet, My winch is a 12,000 lb Bad Land from HF. It has very good reviews on several sites and a friend has one. It can not be beat for the price and availability. So far my one issue is weight. I can only imagine packing it to the hitch in country so rugged that I would need it, Synthetic cable would make it much lighter. I have it to put on. I have only used it a few times, once to test it by spooling the cable and pull the Silverado up the road. I used it to pull a 2500 4x4 Suburban to a spot my tractor would not pull it and to move my Blazer out of the line of fire of the ground squirrel range. It did those with ease with only the parking brake set and all four wheels chocked. I learned not to use 'Park".
I bought a 2 gauge cable kit with quick connectors & wired the winch to match. It has a large T handle switch for the power cables so they are only hot when needed. There is a circuit breaker between the battery & switch. The ground cables are full length to both ends of the truck and share the stock battery ground connection. I don't like having more than one major ground connection especially with all the electronic circuits on the truck. So far I am very happy with it. I'm ready now to rescue the Ford tractor that has been stranded on the hill above the house for a few years due to the rough terrain.
