Winch questions for a newbie

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Hard-Drive

Hard-Drive

Active Member
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359
Location
Rugby
I'm looking for a 12v winch to sit in the big void of my Devon 4x4 winch bumper. Now, I'll be honest, I'm not a hardcore off roader, (my truck is too nice for that!) but I'd like the ability to do a bit of laning solo and have the ability to self recover before needing to "phone a friend". I'll also use it to pull (very light by comparison) boats up a slipway, and I have this dream of one day doing an overland trip to Morocco so I'm slowly building my truck up to spec on this.

So, I don't want to spend a load of money, and having been monitoring stuff on eBay for a while, 2nd hand kit seems to go for quite big money and obviously there's no guarantee that stuff isn't stolen, incomplete, or not working 100%.

What about some of these more budget brands such as Winchmax, Stealth or Rhino? Seems to be plenty around in the £200-£300 bracket, are these OK for the occasional off roader?

Anything else I need to consider? I assume that I need to be looking around the 13000lbs capacity (I have a 110 if that makes any difference) anything else to think about? For example, wire or rope? I totally understand the advantages of rope, and have been using similar material in sailing for years, however I wonder if the lack of chafe damage and more importantly UV damage might make wire a better option for me (plus cost of course!!)

Any tips gratefully recieved.
 
Hard-Drive said:
I'm looking for a 12v winch to sit in the big void of my Devon 4x4 winch bumper. Now, I'll be honest, I'm not a hardcore off roader, (my truck is too nice for that!) but I'd like the ability to do a bit of laning solo and have the ability to self recover before needing to "phone a friend". I'll also use it to pull (very light by comparison) boats up a slipway, and I have this dream of one day doing an overland trip to Morocco so I'm slowly building my truck up to spec on this.

So, I don't want to spend a load of money, and having been monitoring stuff on eBay for a while, 2nd hand kit seems to go for quite big money and obviously there's no guarantee that stuff isn't stolen, incomplete, or not working 100%.

What about some of these more budget brands such as Winchmax, Stealth or Rhino? Seems to be plenty around in the £200-£300 bracket, are these OK for the occasional off roader?

Anything else I need to consider? I assume that I need to be looking around the 13000lbs capacity (I have a 110 if that makes any difference) anything else to think about? For example, wire or rope? I totally understand the advantages of rope, and have been using similar material in sailing for years, however I wonder if the lack of chafe damage and more importantly UV damage might make wire a better option for me (plus cost of course!!)

Any tips gratefully recieved.
Click to expand...
Spend the money if you can... whilst you rarely use it, you want it to work when you need it.

As annoying as he is to deal with I would go to goodwinch and have a browse of his website.

Get a cover from there as well and you will stop UV/winch damage.... Make sure you use it every now and again to keep it lubricated.

13k pounds is ok.. more than you need...

You can go for a cheaper one and cheaper rope and it "may" be ok... in fact it probably will be ok for a while so I wouldn't worry too much.

Rope vs Steel is an endless debate.... I have rope but would swap back to steel in an instant as I have had £300 of rope snap on my second use... and everyone said "well that's surprising and never happened before"
 
For light, occasional use I'd use rope, much easier to handle and cheaper. You may need a good second battery with a split charge system. Can't comment on the winches you mention, mines a pto driven one.

Col
 
Thanks for the info. Yes, I know Goodwinch is...erm...good, however I really must stress if it gets used more than 10 times a year I'll be surprised (apart from test runs as I get that is important too!).

For that real, occasional, get me out the sh1t (literally!) moment, is something like this money wasted?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-13000...883344?hash=item1c86df92d0:g:tfEAAOSw-K9ZEBV7

For example, I have DeWalt power tools which I use all the time (as an amateur), and various Chinese Aldi workshop tools, which for occasional use are perfectly OK for my requirements...
 
Jam1 said:
Apart from the "look" and filling your gaping hole I'd seriously consider a Tirfor type for the usage you describe instead
Click to expand...

Not really what I'm after TBH . Yes, I do want "the look" a bit, but I also just want to be able to hitch it onto a boat trailer and not be faffing around doing it by hand. I also don't want the Tirfor flying round inside the vehicle...something bolted to the front bumper makes more sense to me.
 
Just had a weekend in North Yorks, four vehicles using an 8274 + Bow2 motor, a Superwinch 16.5 +Bow 2 ('kin massive winch that is also used to pull up wind generator poles, a Warn M8000 (mine) with new 5.5hp motor and a Winchmax 13000 with synth rope .... The 8274 (actually the Bow2 motor) screwed up, my Warn, the Superwinch and the Winchmax kept going, but for the price and your stated requirements, I'd go for a Winchmax, but I'd also get it with synthetic rope. This weekend we did 4 miles in about 8 hours, winching, driving 10 yards, winching again, slick clay, very deep ruts and water in a Forestry location. The WM kept pulling, although did get warm, http://www.winchmax.co.uk/products/electric-winch-12v-4x4-13500-lb-winchmax-brand though the one at the weekend was the older version. We were all surprised by what it did!

20170602_205253small.jpg
 
Id suggest this friend of mine bought one a fair while back, never serviced and rarely even cleaned. Works every time with no issue. For £375 you get basically everything you need except for an isolator. It would be perfectly fine for occasional use laning and dropping boats.

When I can afford it thats what I'll be buying.

Edit - Just read Paul suggested the same! :)
 
Mine's the one Paul mentions. It's slow but it works. Mega hot by the end of the day but still working. More than can be said about the rest of the truck . Ripped a wheel arch off, also the snow cowl. Front diff guard in pieces. Difflock broke. Detonated the front near side CV and halfshaft. But the winch carried on working
 
DavidSally said:
Mine's the one Paul mentions. It's slow but it works. Mega hot by the end of the day but still working. More than can be said about the rest of the truck . Ripped a wheel arch off, also the snow cowl. Front diff guard in pieces. Difflock broke. Detonated the front near side CV and halfshaft. But the winch carried on working
Click to expand...

Heheheh, I didn't want to mention the other breakages .. :)
 
Paul, thanks for your experienced view. Yeah, shame it's orange, but I might aim for one of those as it seems like a good compromise.

DavidSally...sounds like you had an "interesting" weekend!!!
 
Please excuse a newbie here if this is stupid, but for working with boats I was always told by the very experienced boatman who used to drop our boat into the gut and retrieve it in autumn that what I wanted was not a winch but a capstan.
So I have always been surprised that there seem to be few, if any, electric capstans for vehicles.

I should be ashamed to admit that my winch is one that slips over the towball, and was bought for pennies from ebay from someone who had converted it to work as a hoist to lift stuff into the back of his van. Just took a bit of work on the clutch to get it working right, although I've only used it a couple of times because I never got round to the permanent cable to the back of the Disco I had.
 
Well, I've sourced a Winchmax 13000 from eBay, so will get that fitted at some point soon, thanks for the recommedations. But it will be going under a cover as I'm not keen on the orange!

In terms of the boat thing, I want to be able to take my young lad out sailing (he's 18m) and the high performance, tippy dinghies I sail are not right for him. I have an old keelboat, which is launched and recovered into a reservoir on an extremely shallow ramp, but it's just marginally too heavy to do on my own. The winch will make this perfectly possible.

Thanks again for the advice.
 
Right, I picked the winch up yesterday, very pleased, it's clearly never been out of it's box. So now to fit it...and a few more questions (it's a Winchmax 13000lb)

1-Power cables. The ones supplied are 1.8m long. I've not measured anything yet, however I have a feeling that they will be too short to get from the winch to the battery mounted under the passenger seat. Does anyone know what the measurement is offhand, and if I do need new cables, it it worth running them from the battery to an Anderson connector mounted on the grille somewhere, and then plugging the shortened cables from the control box into this?

2-Isolator. I'm guessing it's good practice to fit a red "key" type kill switch somewhere in the cab? Spec sheet says the motor current is 65-400A so I guess I need something rated at at least 400A?

3-Clutch. The instructions say when the winch is not in use (i.e. 99.999% of the time) leave the clutch disengaged, on free spool mode, presumably to avoid any nasties if the winch suddenly powers up for some obscure reason. However, surely the drum could slowly unwind, and the prospect of a loop of wire hanging down and catching something on the road at 70mph seems a bit concerning to say the least. What's best practice here?

Thanks in advance!
 
Hard-Drive said:
Right, I picked the winch up yesterday, very pleased, it's clearly never been out of it's box. So now to fit it...and a few more questions (it's a Winchmax 13000lb)

1-Power cables. The ones supplied are 1.8m long. I've not measured anything yet, however I have a feeling that they will be too short to get from the winch to the battery mounted under the passenger seat. Does anyone know what the measurement is offhand, and if I do need new cables, it it worth running them from the battery to an Anderson connector mounted on the grille somewhere, and then plugging the shortened cables from the control box into this?

2-Isolator. I'm guessing it's good practice to fit a red "key" type kill switch somewhere in the cab? Spec sheet says the motor current is 65-400A so I guess I need something rated at at least 400A?

3-Clutch. The instructions say when the winch is not in use (i.e. 99.999% of the time) leave the clutch disengaged, on free spool mode, presumably to avoid any nasties if the winch suddenly powers up for some obscure reason. However, surely the drum could slowly unwind, and the prospect of a loop of wire hanging down and catching something on the road at 70mph seems a bit concerning to say the least. What's best practice here?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
The cables should be long enough, along the chassis arm to under the battery compartment isn't that far.

Join the cables with a fuse/isolator...and you want to be careful joining as that's your weak spot and heat will be generated.

I have never heard of leaving the clutch disengaged...and the winch will never power up as you would need to engage power to it via the isolator, and then turn it on with the remote which is unlikely. Mine is 7 years or so in and always engaged. More because I didn't want some idiot pulling it out when I was parked.
 
Hard-Drive said:
Right, I picked the winch up yesterday, very pleased, it's clearly never been out of it's box. So now to fit it...and a few more questions (it's a Winchmax 13000lb)

1-Power cables. The ones supplied are 1.8m long. I've not measured anything yet, however I have a feeling that they will be too short to get from the winch to the battery mounted under the passenger seat. Does anyone know what the measurement is offhand, and if I do need new cables, it it worth running them from the battery to an Anderson connector mounted on the grille somewhere, and then plugging the shortened cables from the control box into this?

1.8 m should be OK, I'd try it first before you buy extra cable. Run along the chassis and through the battery box just behind the tunnel, through a hole you cut into the battery bos .. :)

2-Isolator. I'm guessing it's good practice to fit a red "key" type kill switch somewhere in the cab? Spec sheet says the motor current is 65-400A so I guess I need something rated at at least 400A?

I run the same as this, on the seat box, between the passengers legs .. ;) Isolator

3-Clutch. The instructions say when the winch is not in use (i.e. 99.999% of the time) leave the clutch disengaged, on free spool mode, presumably to avoid any nasties if the winch suddenly powers up for some obscure reason. However, surely the drum could slowly unwind, and the prospect of a loop of wire hanging down and catching something on the road at 70mph seems a bit concerning to say the least. What's best practice here?

I've never run with the winch in freespool whilst on-road at all. I do sometimes leave it in freespool when we're (for instance) daisy chaining up a large hill, last hooked onto one in front, front hooked up to a tree/whatever. Front vehicle winches itself up whilst freespooling out the one behind, when front is at the top, brakes on and is then the anchor for the next and so on, next then winches in to pull up the hill. At the top all unhook winches and carry on .. :)

If you run an isolator I feel the winch can't ever power up so long as you do use the isolator only when actually winching, so I run mine in gear!

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
 
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