Superwinch = junk

I'm not personally familiar with the Superwinch brand's good and bad points, but I would say that your problem wasn't with the winch; at least not the quality of it. You can't expect *anyone's* 4500 lb. winch to pull a TJ out of axle-deep mud! 8000-10000 lb. winches would probably have been able to do it, but would have had to work pretty hard at it. Not only do you have the suction of the mud on the tires (as well as the axles and skid plates), but you're trying to pull the jeep up an almost vertical leading edge! Your

I got my Cherokee bumper deep on one side in a mud puddle Friday and the TJ behind me with a Warn 9000 lb winch had a hard time dragging me out.

Photos at alt.binaries.pictures.autos.4x4

You also have to realize the rated pull is on the second row of windings with the cable all the way out, not with only 10 or 20 feet of line out.

I have stalled my Warn 9000 with only a short pull. Had to back up a ways to get more line out to have more pulling power.

Mike

Joshua Nels>

hi mike, im surprised you dont carry a snatch block.

A snatch block may of been a good option for Joshua when he was stuck. Winch was underpowered but a pulley would of given him double the pulling power and/or could of been used to help pull from a different direction or angle. Not the first choice, but a snatch block does open options that all sound better than walking home through knee deep mud.

Every time I hear "snatch block" I think chastity belt. Why don't they just call it a "winch pully"?

Don

Nathan W. Collier wrote:

That's 4500 lbs on a flat road, and only close to the end of the spool. An incline would add friction and resistance and so downgrade the amount it could pull.

Being stuck in the mud adds a HELL of a lot more friction and resistance. As others have pointed out, the effective weight of your rig can more than double in such a circumstance. You bought too small of a winch. If you had a snatch block, you could have doubled the pulling power of your winch. A Warn 4500 lb winch wouldn't fare any better. Go back, return the winch, get a bigger one (9500 lbs) and get a heavy duty snatch block.

You're welcome!

You need at least an 8000# winch to recover a TJ.

Only stuck up to your axles? That's not very stuck... I've had my XJ stuck up to the top of my 31x10.50s... Wrapped a strap around a small tree / shrub and hooked the cable to it and my Milemarker pulled me right out of it... Maybe you should have gotten a larger rated winch...

With the emphasis on "at least"! You should have a "snatch block" or "winch pulley" to double your pulling power if you need to, also.

That's ridiculous. A 4500 lb winch ought to be able to pull 4500 lbs or it isn't a 4500 lb winch. Seems pretty straightforward to me. What are you going to tell me next, my 2.5L engine is actually only

This is a stock jeep, darn near its factory curb weight. And no one was sitting in the vehicle. Probably the only extra weight on this jeep is the winch itself!! So I was well below 4500lbs. Mud might be heavy but there is no way that there wer 1800 lbs of it on the jeep!

(Not to mention, the winch wasn't even having to pull the full weight of the jeep, because I was trying to winch mostly horizontally, not pull the 2700 lb jeep straight up into the air! Shoot, put the jeep in neutral on a flat hard surface and I can push it into motion myself, and I guarantee I haven't got 2700lbs of hauling power in my biceps!!)

BTW I am not familiar with snatch blocks. I found some pictures of them on the internet after reading these replies so now I know what they are and what they look like, but I'm having trouble picturing exactly how they would work or how they could double the strength of the winch. Could someone explain this to me or refer me to a photo? This might be the route I have to take. It seems the jerks at Quadratec balk at taking a refund on a product with a little bit of mud on it.

hi joshua, youre _really_ missing the boat on this. your winch will pull 4500 pounds. when your jeep is buried in mud, it as added resistance and weighs a whole lot more than what it would weigh if you were just trying to lift it straight up. the mud and goop around your tires are like anchors and they will hold it in place without additional force over and above what your jeep itself weighs on flat pavement to get it going. you need to take the weight of your vehicle and double it, and that will be the size winch you need.

its not the weight of the mud itself, its the added resistance the mud puts on the tow line.

pulling it straight up into the air would have been easier than trying to lift it out of the hole by pulling horizontal. thats where the added force comes in, dont you see that?

and _thats_ where a 4500 pound winch will pull you. :-)

Apparently not.

RTFM

From

From

1. The S4500 winch is rated at 4,500 pounds (2,041 kg) (single line) capacity on the wire rope layer closest to the drum. DO NOT OVERLOAD. DO NOT ATTEMPT PROLONGED PULLS AT HEAVY LOADS. Do not maintain power to the winch if the motor stalls. Overloads can damage the winch and/or the wire rope and create unsafe operating conditions.

FOR LOADS OVER 3,000 POUNDS (1,361KG), WE RECOMMEND THE USE OF THE OPTIONAL PULLEY BLOCK TO DOUBLE LINE THE WIRE ROPE (Figures 2 & 16). This reduces the load on the winch and the strain on the wire rope by approximately 50%. If attaching back to vehicle, attach to the frame or other load bearing part.

The vehicle engine should be running during winch operation to minimize battery drain and maximize winch power and speed. If considerable winching is performed with the engine off, the battery may be too weak to restart the engine.

1. AFTER READING AND UNDER-STANDING THIS MANUAL, LEARN TO USE YOUR WINCH. After installing the winch, practice using it so you will be familiar with it when the need arises.

PERFORMANCE Wire Rope Max. Pulling Capacity Layer lbs.

Working Load* . . . 4,500 lbs.

-Jeff

Man read the thread!

A friend almost stalled his 9000 lb winch just pulling my Cherokee out of a puddle. It wasn't even a real mud hole and I was still able to move 5' forward and back, I was just stuck in a hole.

Mike

Joshua Nels>

Your TJ weighs in the 3200lbs range, and your trying to pull it with a 4500lbs winch -- that's the problem.. The winch isn't even close to being big enouph..

A winch *should* be rated at around 2 1/2 times your vehicles weight for ideal preformance.

Replace it with a 8000+lbs rated winch.. I just tossed my old Warn HS9500 on my jeep -- it was able to move my old truck around quite well..

Excellent quote, Jeff. Says it all...

LOL!!! :0)