Someone on a repair sub was just talking about this exact thing, testing boards before they get tossed in the dead pile. Wild that a $12 tool saved you from replacing 24 machines, schools just guess half the time.

I used to just eat the cost on stuff like that, figured it came with the job and arguing over it wasn't worth the headache. Then I hit a stump with a chunk of old patio buried in it and burned up half a day and a set of teeth, and the homeowner acted like I was trying to rob them when I brought up extra. Now I walk every stump before I quote it, probe around with a bar, and put it in writing that hidden metal or concrete means extra. That $450 you charged was fair, you didn't know what was down there and neither did they. Stuff like rebar, old fence posts, and concrete gets buried by decades of dirt and grass and there's no way to see it coming.

Your breather hose probably didn't get kinked from the winch pull itself. Side pulls like that flex the axle housing and suspension way more than a normal recovery, but the hose is usually just plastic tubing routed along the frame or axle. What likely happened is the sideways yank shifted the axle just enough to pinch the line against the frame or a spring perch, or the hose was already hanging loose and got trapped when things moved around. I'd crawl under there and check where it's actually touching before you reroute anything, because if it's rubbing on metal it'll wear through and then you're pulling water into your diff on the next water crossing. A lot of guys just zip tie it up higher with some slack and a little loop so it can flex without kinking, cheap fix and takes five minutes.