Winching VS. Pulling

[Brian McVickers]

http://tucsonoffroad.proboards107.co...ead=1154843597

In the two videos linked above, one vehicle is stuck in some water and another vehicle is winching them out of the water and then up a hill.

The recovery vehicle doing the winching also burnt out its winch motor in the process.

In this situation should you winch or pull with a strap?

Limited space will probably play a big factor the decision.

[ZooJunkie]

From the video it looked like they had plenty of space to pull the truck up the hill.

I would say once the truck was freed from the water, and on more firm grounding, switch to pulling the vehicle out. Give that winch a break, but we have the luxury of hindsight.

[Scott Brady]

I always prefer to winch, and for two reasons:

1. Practice! Need to use the tools as much as possible
2. Control: Winches allow slow, fine control for moving the load and make life much easier on the vehicles.

But, sometimes you don't have time, or you are getting stuck several times in a trail (or a large group), so it is much faster to just pull out a strap.

Other times, there is nothing suitable to winch to in front of you, so you must get pulled/winched back.

When winching, always check the heat of the motor with a gloved hand.

[OutbacKamper]

When winching, always check the heat of the motor with a gloved hand.

Um..wouldn't it be safer to stop winching first and then check?

sorry, I could not resist

Cheers
Mark

[Scott Brady]

It depends on how much of a hurry you are in

[Grim Reaper]

First vid was no big deal. Flat area so the winch was not moving a major load To get it to shore. Either option would have worked. I probably would have gone with the winch too just to save getting my strap wet.

Second vid the Winch is not a bad Idea. In fact with the limited area it was probably the better choice. I don't think the Jeep would have had enough traction to pull the dead K5 up the hill with no real area to get a rolling start. Also the speed needed with the K5 going backwards it could have got out of hand REAL quick and possibly result in the K5 on its side.

Now he made a really bad choice in how little cable he had out. That winch, if it was the factory cable on it, had between 100-125ft of cable. He only had 30-40ft out when he was at max load. That K5 would be around 5-5.5k. So he was exceeding the winches rating.


Yeah yeah that just confused a few of you ...Some of you are going to say "but that was at least an 8K winch!" Here is the reason he exceeded the winch rating:

A Winch is rated max pull on the first wrap on the drum. He was on the 3rd wrap and the extra diameter reduces its max pull to around 4-5k depending on what the winch was rated. That is why he was having problems and then overheated and burned up his winch. He should have backed up more to allow the winch to be on the bottom wrap OR he should have double lined it. Either option would reduce load on the winch. He should have also allowed the winch to rest and cool. The duty cycle at full pull is only 30 seconds or so.
Here is the specs on the M8000...one of the more popular winches with the people on this site. http://www.warn.com/truck/winches/src/M8000.shtml
The third wrap single line is rated 3900lb.

Now look at that vid one more time.....Just where the hell was he pulling that truck to in the first place?

The winch truck was sitting where the disabled truck needed to be. There was a clear spot 30feet back allowing for enough room to get that K5 to the top of the hill on one rig double lined.

It is best to rig and make sure the disabled vehicle will stop in a safe place. Stopping on that hill to re-rig is NOT safe. The K5 probably wasn't running so no power assist. NEVER trust a Parking paw or a parking brake on that steep of hill. That Winching operation is best served as a bad example of how to winch. It was just plain bad planning and not knowing the equipment.

If you ever get in the position where you have no choice but to make multiple rigs on a hill it’s a good Idea to use a recovery strap to a fixed object to make sure the vehicle is not going to slide when the cable tension is removed when you rig to the next winch point.

[DaktariEd]

Grim Reaper,

Actually that helps my understanding a lot!
As a novice at winching and such I can use all the help I can get.

Thanks for the post...


Ed

[Grim Reaper]

Grim Reaper,

Actually that helps my understanding a lot!
As a novice at winching and such I can use all the help I can get.

Thanks for the post...


Ed

No problem. You learn to do it right REAL quick at Tellico. Nothing stinks worse then having to drag a cable up a snot slick mud covered 45degree hill to drag a Way over weight K5 up a 600ft hill...in the rain. You know its going to be a long day when you are stalling a HS9500i on the second wrap and the 5th truck in line didn't strap to a tree as he started to re rig and slid 40ft down right after the cable was unhooked and is sideways on the slope about to roll. LOL

I don't have a picture of that truck but here is pictures of my truck as I was going up. Thats the approach to Guardrail......If it has rained in the last three hours.....pass that obstacle. LOL

I didn't have a winch at the time and was the third truck. The guy in front of me would pull himself up and stabilize on a strap then we would rig off a tree back down to me and pull my truck up, strap and do it again. Dry that section takes 15 minutes if you have a locker. Wet it took us 3.5 hours to get 7 trucks up it.

The first pick my truck was on a water bar the second pic in a few areas there wasn't a tree close enough to strap off too so we would have to back the truck into a the berms for the water bars to make sure they would stay put.

[flyingwil]

It depends on how much of a hurry you are in

HMMMMM Could that be the outback Challenge?

Need more pics!

[Willman]

More pictures would rock!!!

Time is the big factor in this issue...I like to make time for the winch!!! Gotta play with the toys!!!