I know this is an older post but your fairlead along with the design or construction of the winch will determine top or bottom feed on the winch. The pic in post 10 looks wrong to me for two reasons.
1) It looks like the cable will bind on the top through bolt (from each housing end of the winch) under tension. It also looks like the angle is bad for the bend radius of the cable under tension. As the cable would have a downforce tension on it from the fairlead as it immediately travels up to go over the spool. If the fairlead mounting bolts were to ever fail the cable would be forced against the through bolt of the winch. If the fairlead mounting bolts were to fail with the cable feeding from the bottom of the spool, the tension would stay against the spool and stay clear of the through bolt unless you have 120 degrees or more of upward tension.
2) The load on mounting bolt for the winch would be applied to the head of the rear two mounting bolts with a higher force instead of spread out against the shoulder of all four mounting bolts with a load applied against the cable.
Just my opinion.
1) It looks like the cable will bind on the top through bolt (from each housing end of the winch) under tension. It also looks like the angle is bad for the bend radius of the cable under tension. As the cable would have a downforce tension on it from the fairlead as it immediately travels up to go over the spool. If the fairlead mounting bolts were to ever fail the cable would be forced against the through bolt of the winch. If the fairlead mounting bolts were to fail with the cable feeding from the bottom of the spool, the tension would stay against the spool and stay clear of the through bolt unless you have 120 degrees or more of upward tension.
2) The load on mounting bolt for the winch would be applied to the head of the rear two mounting bolts with a higher force instead of spread out against the shoulder of all four mounting bolts with a load applied against the cable.
Just my opinion.
