Hydraulic Winch

Hey, Have any of y'all out there in Jeep land had any experience with the Mile Marker hydraulic winches. Christmas is coming up soon and Kate has been hinting for a winch for her Rubi. I never have been a fan of electric winches. Yeah, Iknow, they've been around for a long time but electric winches have a high amp draw, toasted batteries amd alternators etc. Hydraulics are simple, heat is the big enemy with them. Thanks Dick

Reply to
Big Iron
Loading thread data ...

With hydraulic winches, if your engine isn't running, you have no winch. You could still get a limited pull from an electric to pull yourself from the water hole that caused your engine to hydrolock.

Heat is not good for electrics, either.

I think most people prefer electrics for their relatively simple installation, reliability and ability to run independent of the engine. A good deep-cycle battery is a plus if you need the winch often.

BTW hats off to you, as being Kate's worse half :-)

Matt

Reply to
Matt Macchiarolo

Mile Marker offers a free video that is mostly about electrics but does cover some hydraulics as I recall

formatting link

Reply to
billy ray

Lucky Kate!

Dont know anything about hydro winches, but an electric with a dual battery set up gives you almost no chance to go wrong (start/run the rig off of one and run the winch, lights, etc off the other one - not all that hard to wire in either).

Of course then its the cable/rope decision... not to mention is it Warn, Tmaxx, Superwinch, or ??? (cant recall the 4th big name).

-jenn

Reply to
jbjeep
4th big name is MileMarker.

Carl

Reply to
Carl

The trouble with a hydraulic winch is that if you are trying to recover your own vehicle, the winch REQUIRES the engine to be running during the recovery, this is not always possible or practical.

Yes, the electric units have a relatively short duty cycle, but the vast majority of recovery operations are shorter than the battery life, and once your self-recovered vehicle is back on its wheels, you could start the motor if need be, and continue winching caution, keeping in mind the very issues you have raised.

If you were always recovering others and never recovering yourself, the hydraulic winch makes lots of sense, but as soon as you are in the predicament where you are recovering yourself AND you are not on your wheels, you will quickly understand the shortcomings of hydraulic winches.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

There have only been two times I couldn't recover my Jeep and had to walk a 'long' way for help and in both cases my wheels were no longer on the ground and it wouldn't have been good or even possible to run my engine when tipped way over like that.

I now have an electric winch, a Warn HS9000i, so I will likely never be in that situation again. LOL!

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Reply to
Mike Romain

Reply to
L.W.(Bill) Hughes III

Nate has a write-up of his installation of his Mile Marker hydraulic winch for 2000 TJ Sahara. Lots of good info, if you want a hydraulic.

formatting link
Tom

Reply to
mabar

Oops sorry, I gave you the link for the electric winch installation. Here is the correct link for the hydraulic.

formatting link
Tom

Reply to
mabar

Thanks for the input.

Reply to
Big Iron

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.