winch suggestions?

cyrylyn · February 4, 2003

Ok. Price isn't my foremost issue - I'm broke, so it's gonna take awhile to save up no matter what

I'm attracted to MileMarker's hydraulic winch, because it's entirely waterproof, and can be used underwater, in mud, snow, etc. At one time, I thought using the truck's power steering pump could be adequate; I have since broken the pump offroading, driven it significant distance without power steering, and had it replaced. Otherwise, Warn looks good, but they're all electrical, AFAIK?

99silveradoz71 · February 5, 2003

I don't have 1, but I know I see a lot of Warn & Ramsey winches advertised.

k1500chevy97 · February 5, 2003

We have one that mounts up behind the bumper in sort of a hidden fasion .

It works pretty good from what I heard it has been used 3 times so far . I have not used it yet though

These two trucks have ones that are driven off of the p/s pump they work ok but the guys who drive these trucks dont like them as much as the Warns

carguru · February 5, 2003

I will be getting one of the Mile Markers soon. I just sold my Warn XD9000i last month. A friend of mine has the Mile Marker on his '99. Never has had a problem with his power steering pump. He uses his quite a bit, so I'm not so concerned. The Warn is a nice winch. I'm just not so fond of the way that any of the electric winches pull the battery down. Bottom line: I don't want to be stuck and have a dead battery.

City_Slicker · February 5, 2003

I have always heard WARN was a good winch.

February 8, 2003

I suggest one about 5'5" and auburn hair, around 110 lbs. Don't get a true redhead as these have been deemed to fiesty. Blondes have a bad rep as idiots, but most aren't too bad.

They are kinda pricey to maintain, though and will suck dry any mod money and savings you were planning on putting in your truck....

Huh?

Oh, I thought this was about wenches, not winches.

Um, I don't have one of those.

TxDoc · February 9, 2003

I have owned Warn winches since 1977, and still have that modell 8274. Their customer service is superb. My Warns have included, one M12,000, the 8274, a 9500, an M8000i, two A2500's and an A2000.

The battery-run winches will still pull if the engine dies. The other's won't. While winching with a Mile Marker, the ability to steer is diminished, and they suffer from slow line speed as do PTO's.

The electric winch does not require the engine to be running to work, which is it's biggest advantage. The big argument against the electric winch in the past was it would drain you battery and there was no way your alternator could provide sufficient power for a long pull. The automotive industry has made great improvements in alternator and battery technology over the past years which has given the advantage to the electric winch. Batteries have more power and alternators have higher outputs. An electric winch might even work if your truck is upsidedown or under water.

The hydraulics are what most larger tow trucks use and are more of a "continuous duty" winch, whereas the electric winches are for "intermittent" use. If the motor is too hot to touch, then you need to let it cool or risk damage. Some people run the hydraulic winches with a detected belt driven pump via a electromagnetic clutch.

From an owner who switched from hydraulic to electric:

"

Option 1, use the steering pump. Milemarker winches typically want at least a flow rate of 4 gallons at 1500psi. A TJ steering pump can deliver 2-3 at best, 1500psi. Upshot being you get a very slow line speed, Phil could not keep a straight face when I was winching in Sweden. Additionally you cannot steer while winching + you run the risk of damaging your steering pump/box, in 3 months I destroyed 2.

Option 2, use a dedicated pump. Finding a suitable vein??? pump (constant flow, regardless of RPM) is not to difficult, in my case I was looking for a pump with a flow rate of 4-7 gallons, pressure rating of 1500psi. Higher flow rate = faster line speed. Problem was finding a pump that fitted in the TJ and would either take a V-belt or serpentine belt. I wanted to install the pump where the a/c pump normally goes. Gave up after several months of hunting (contacting various hydraulic companies etc, Milemarker UK importer) and connected the Milemarker to the steering pump - bad idea, see option 1. Assuming you find a suitable pump/clutch you then decide where to fit the hydraulic fluid reservoir. This is where the specialists disagreed, some told me reservoir MUST be mounted higher than the pump some said it did not matter. Hmm! Assuming you've got a reservoir (that's been sized correctly) you need to include a safety overflow, so if winch jams fluid gets redirected in to the reservoir and possibly a cooler. Rather than keep going, I think you get the picture. Installing the winch is the easy bit, driving the things the problem!!! Off course, some people will tell you that you don't need a clutch, the pump can run continuously. Possible, but you need to remember that continuously circulating fluid will get hot plus the pump will use a few HPs.

My advice, if you want to go for a MileMarker (or any other Hyrdraulic winch) is find somebody who knows what they are talking about and has already developed a working system. Also its worth finding out what size Hydraulic motors fitted to the winch, for example, I believe MileMarkers can be fitted with several different models. Also, unless you know somebody in the trade, pump/clutch/reservoir/hoses etc will set you back $$$"

Just some other info:

The most important thing to consider when selecting a winch is whether it is capable of pulling 1.5 times the gross vehicle weight (GVW) of your vehicle (don't forget to take into account that 12% drop in pulling power for every extra wrap of cable on the drum - a 9000lb winch has a line pull of approx. 7000lbs on the third wrap). GVW is the real world weight of your vehicle, i.e. fully loaded. So fill up your gas tank, load up all those off-road goodies, tools, hi-lift jacks, people and go get your vehicle weighed.

There are three common gearing systems, worm gear, spur gear and planetary gear. They all do the same job, gear down the high speed motor to a low speed high torque winch drum. The gear reduction ratio is by how much the motor's output revolutions are reduced for the spindle. The greater the reduction, the more revolutions the motor has to turn for one spindle revolution and the less the motor has to work for that revolution. The difference in the gearing systems is mainly in their transfer efficiency.

The worm gear has a transfer effiency of 35-40%. This causes the winch to be self-braking even under heavy loads, but this means the unit will need a clutch mechanism for free spooling. Worm gears offer the most reduction, very high reliability, built-in braking mechnism, and generally a slower winching speed.

The spur and planetary gear systems have efficiencies of 75% and 65% respectively. This means they have a tendency to free spool when loaded, therefore a braking mechanism is needed. Planatary gears are the most common and provide both strength and smooth operation with good resistance to torque loads.

An electric motor basically has two major parts, the stator and the rotor (or armature). It is the job of the stator to produce a magnetic field which will cause the rotor to rotate when an electric current flows through it.

In a permanent magnet motor, the stator uses permanent magnets. This means the current drain on the battery is lower than series wound motors (which uses field coils in the stator). Permanent magnet motors are good for light and medium duty winches, but winching time and load has to be carefully monitored as they tend to overheat. Series wound motors are used in heavier duty winches, but tend to cost more.

No matter what you get, add a snatchblock to your equepment. It will double your pulling power--assuming a good batter and on the first wrap of the drum. It halves your line speed, but also halves what strain your winch "sees".

I have a friend in the Canary Islands who competes in winching contests. They have categories for electric, hydraulic and PTOs. He would be good to talk to if you are interested. Let me know and I'll pass his email on to you.

One final thing is you may want to look at Plasma Rope:

Plasma rope is manufactured of 12-strand single braid with ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). The result: a 9.5 mm dia rope can pull almost seven tons before it breaks and weights only a fraction compared to ordinary steel cable. Plasma Line supplied by Ruftracks. It is claimed to be even stronger than AmSteel Blue, being of a material put through a special process patented by Puget Sound Rope.

http://www.ruftraks.co.uk/technical_in formation.htm

http://www.ruftraks.co.uk/

http://www.rockequipment.com/acc2.htm

About $1-$3/foot

What do you know of the Master Pull rope?

http://www.4wdandsportutility.com /tech/02094wd_stronger/

Stronger Than Steel!

Swapping Your Steel Cable for a Master-Pull Winch Rope

By Mike Castillo, Dave Cox

Photography: Dave Cox, Mike Castillo

Safety is sometimes the most overlooked issue when it comes to purchasing parts. Although, when it comes to vehicle recovery equipment, you want to make sure you are getting the safest, most reliable piece of equipment money can buy. However, that isn't always the case. A company called Master-Pull produces a line of recovery equipment for winching operations that is literally second to none. And for Master-Pull, safety truly is the number one priority.

Master-Pull's winch rope was originally developed for use in the off-shore fishing industry. Anyone with experience in that arena will tell you that it's an extremely harsh, corrosive environment in which equipment has to work the first time every time. The winch rope is actually a 12-strand plasma rope that consists of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers, and it is manufactured in many lengths and diameters.

To give you an idea of its strength, 125 feet of 3/8-inch rope has a 17,500-pound rating. That's almost twice as strong as the highest-rated winches on the market today. Master-Pull even produces a latch-type, safety-closure hook rated at 17,600 pounds to work in conjunction with the winch rope, which allows you to do away the not-so-safe non-closable hook that came with your winch. The rope is UV-protected and is available in yellow, purple, and gray. The rope's lightweight construction enables it to float on water and will reduce the weight of your winch setup by as much as 25 pounds.

The sport of rockcrawling has quickly become very popular, and with tougher trails being added each year, the possibility of vehicles requiring the use of winches during these competitions is almost certain. ARCA felt that the use of conventional wire cable during competition was simply not safe around the increasing number of spectators at these events. Although a rarity, mishaps do happen, and a broken cable flying through the air could cause serious injury.

If a Master-Pull winch rope snaps, however, it simply falls to the ground. ARCA saw this as a huge advantage and now requires that all vehicles competing in ARCA-sanctioned events use a rope-type cable substitute such as the Mater-Pull winch rope.

Whether you're concerned about safety, tired of getting metal slivers in your hands, or just can't stand looking at that old, rusty cable anymore, Master-Pull has the solution.

I have a headache now. Good luck on your choice! This will be your best mod. After you get it, you will wonder how you ever got along without it.

City_Slicker · February 10, 2003

Don't get a true redhead as these have been deemed to fiesty.

True, True!!

My ol lady is red headed

elboberino · February 10, 2003

Anyone know who makes a winch that fits into the hitch on the back. A tow-truck driver told me about one but he couldn't remember the name. Apparently I can also get a hitch up front and the winch is interchangeable from the front and back. That would be useful!

carguru · February 10, 2003

They all do now. You just have to get the receiver hitch mount for the front of the truck. The only drawback to this type of mount is that the winch is limited to a 9000 lb rating--the max rating for the receiver type hitch. Warn calls theirs a multimount. I had the Warn XD9000i on a multimount kit just for this reason.

elboberino · February 11, 2003

So, since my hitch is only rated for 9k lbs, i shouldn't purchase a hitch rated over that? Also, do I have to get a front receiver? Can't I just use the one on the back?

carguru · February 11, 2003

The rating of the receiver is 9000 lbs. I would not recommend going over this. In fact, Warn, Superwinch, Ramsey and Mile Marker only allow a max of 9000 lb winch for that kind of mounting. If you want to go with a higher capacity winch, you're better off getting one of the fixed mounts. They are much more powerful. With the receiver hitch, you are limited by the hitch pin and the welds on the hitch (which for class 3 is 5000 lbs with a 9000 lb max).

Mounting the winch only on the rear only would be ok. Possibly enough to get you out of a stuck. This would limit you as much as just having the winch on the front end. Murphy's law always has it that if you only have a winch on the front, the only thing you can attach to is behind you or vice versa. You could easily get a front receiver hitch from reputable companies like Hidden Hitch.

Also mounting an electric winch to the rear of the vehicle is the weakest position for the winch. Mounted to the front, the power cables are relatively short and close to the battery. Unless you set up a battery to the rear of the vehicle, you are running many more feet of power cable (roughly 20 feet for extended cab short bed p/u). The extra resistance of the extra cable length will kill the performance of the winch.

TxDoc · February 11, 2003

If you go with the muli-mount, the advice on the 5,000 lb limit for class III hitches are paramount. I use several keyed-alike locks so I don't have to keep up with multiple keys. I dirilled out my hitch pin to accept one of these locks. I had a friend with a 4-day old HS9000 that was simply and easily stolen by not securing it. If you tote it around, lock it in some fashion. I am using my winch in the rear mount while waiting on Warn to release the hidden mount for a 2003 GMC, Chevy is out, I think. So, far this has worked out fine.