Winching - What if question

Your buddy is right to a point....

I mean, really, when you get stuck, how many times are you 'not' going forward....

So I nose dived into a grass patch that turned into a 300 yd swamp one of the first times out with my winch on.

Ya, ya, I was solo and 'just going to the store' from a cottage with my nephew and he recommended a 'short cut' the snowmobiles take in the winter.... LOL!

I ran my cable down on my roller fairlead, went under the bumper, under the front axle tube (had to get down and nasty in the swamp to do this) and under the back axle tube out to a tree....

Well it worked, but it bent my new winch plate down a bunch. It kinked it.

I do 'not' like receiver hitches. Yes they have a place and can work, but on a full sized vehicle, I consider them dangerous and/or damaging.

I am thinking I need to make a couple sockets and weld them on the outside edges of my winch mount for say 1 1/4" square tube so I could have an A frame with a pulley at the cross brace to guide the cable out and back under...

There 'shouldn't' be a market for such a device, because we aren't 'supposed' to run solo..... ;-)

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

William Oliveri wrote:

What about the old fashion come along.. As long as it isn't too far to latch on something...

Ben

95 YJ 2.5L

i keep a come-along for winching backwards. 99% of the time if i need a winch, a forward pull is acceptable. since i dont use a winch very often anyway, a come-along does fine for the 1% that i have to winch backwards, and thats assuming i cant run the cable under the jeep for whatever reason.

The idea is great, however...can he comfortably carry the weight of the winch to the other end of the vehicle in mud to his knees (or deeper)?

I thought of that, but very quickly realized that I cant manage the weight of the winch if its not on flat (non-slippery) ground - but thats a personal thing, and also depends on which winch you have. A lot of you guys can manage it just fine.

In a pinch, if I was desperate, I think I would run the cable under the axles and pray I didnt screw up anything important. Better yet, slowly bring the nose around with short pulls at an extreme angle (respooling the winch between).

You carry a snatch block, right? that can help a lot when the pulls are really sharp and awkward, if, you have a place to attach it to.

It seems to me, that if you are buried in mud, you might have trouble getting the cable under it. Most factory reciever mount winches are pretty light. I have used my winch to drag the front end 90 degrees and set another pull to get me turned around.

It can be done but there are problems with doing that, as Mike Romain can attest. I think to do that successfully, you have to be setup to do it from the start rather than rednecking something together in the field. My current strategy for dealing with that involves pulling out backwards, one hi-lift jack length at a time.

Then you have the limitations of the receiver to deal with. You will probably be limited to 3500 or 5000 pounds and they don't handle side loadings very well.

One thing that I have been considering is fabricating a custom rear bumper that would take a built in winch. It is still in the brainstorming phase so feel free to laugh, but looking at the websites of the various winch manufacturers, the most compact "recovery" winch is the Ramsey REP5000. The obvious advantage is less size and weight, with the equally obvious disadvantages of a short cable (80 feet) and limited power. My thinking is if I had to use it, I could double up using a snatch block and still make a 30-35 foot pull at 10,000 pounds. It should be enough to pull me out of anything I was dumb enough to stick my nose into, and would be a damn sight better than using a Hi-lift jack with a chain. Plus, it would give me some measure of engine out capability, because I run a 10,500 pound milemarker hydraulic on the front.

---------------------------------------------------- Del Rawlins- del@_kills_spammers_rawlinsbrothers.org Remove _kills_spammers_ to reply via email. Unofficial Bearhawk FAQ website:

"L.W. (ßill) Hughes III" wrote

For you guys in So Cal, thats what you get when soft dirt gets really wet.

Shoot, I've never seen mud like I've seen in California. Actually, maybe clay is a better word. You step in that stuff and it's like a freakin Sand Leach or something. It attaches itself to your shoe and won't let go. The more you walk around in it the more it attaches itself to you until you got to big Mud Snow shoes on. Geeezz. I'd hate to have to dig my jeep outta that. It'd take a month just to get the stuff off.

I used to go play in saltwater mudflats in National City and San Felipe Mexico. Bad idea. When you get home, put a sprinkler under it for a few hours, it'll fall off.