Question for the winching gurus

[Nightjar]

Good luck. Be sure to have spare batteries for your calculator.

[Rocket55]

That's why you carry a spare winch rope. If you break it, throw in a winch block and go again.

[MudRunnerTD]

So understanding that this thread is a Hypothetical conversation with a view of having some form of definitive answer at the end it gets very very difficult. We have to allow for so many things and rely heavily on Education and Common Sense. The later is the most important thing in the bush.

This thread is not about How to you a winch, thats the easy part and if its on your car Any Numb Nuts can press the button. Understanding the Fundamentals of what your Actually doing though is a learning curve everyone should get their heads into.

It really is not good enough to use a winch to Failure, whether that be mechanical or material failure, we should be making judgements before we gat to that stage. If you break a winch rope your likely to be on a fairly steep Incline, in the mud, no grip, fully loaded to breaking strain, when that rope breaks you are potentially going backwards fast or staying very very stuck. I have broken a winch rope a few times, it aint great! fortunately i live in a world of plasma rope so no damage was done except i now have a 28m long rope that started at 45m and has been spliced a few times too. I will be fitting 12mm rope to the highmount but that just moved s the weakest link to something else!

So its not about Hw to use your winch or whether your battery will see the task done. Its about Do You understand how Heavy you are.

Below is a couple of quotes out of my thread Recovery-The-Fundamentals

Basic Winching and the Affect of MUD.

But what if your bogged? If your fourby is bogged in the Mud then the depth of the bog will have a massive affect on the loaded weight of the vehicle.

Below is a guide only for calculating the dead weight of the vehicle when in mud.

Bogged to the Base of the Wheel Rim, you will require a pull of 100% of the load

Bogged to the wheel Hub, the weight doubles! You will require a pull of 200% of the load

Bogged to the Belly or the Chassis and it is x3! You will require a pull of 300% of the load


And lets face it, the later is when winches are really being asked for.

Apply these weight variants to ALL of your RECOVERY gear!

Consider these variations when you are looking at your vehicle and considering how you will extract it form its position. Consider being stuck in the mud to the chassis on a 25degree slope!!!



Rule Number 1

Work Safely, Protect Life.
Determine the load,
Assess the Environment.

THINK!!

I developed this a few years ago with a view that it could be printed and stuck to the back of the sun visor if you wanted.

At the end of the day when your stuck and need to recover or self recover you need to take some time and give the entire thing some thought. Consider the weakest link and over compensate for potential Load. As i stated in the second post, When in doubt Double up the line.

[threedogs]

@ MR are you extending the spool on the high mount, or havin twin motors ETC
or just running the bigger motor?

[MudRunnerTD]

@ MR are you extending the spool on the high mount, or havin twin motors ETC
or just running the bigger motor?

Hi john,

I have extended the drum and reduced the diameter via a Deltatek +76 air freespool, have a warn 6hp motor with a 24v supply. Going to pull like a train!!






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk cause AB turned it back on!!

[outback]

As I initially stated, this is a Hypothetical question.

In simple terms what I am looking at are the forces being exerted in such a situation, as well as in the ropes and anchor points.

A misjudgement in understanding such forces can possible end up with vehicle damage or rope/anchor failure.

The concept of "drive out" has been raised in this thread and this has a reduction on forces that have to be over come.
At present I have not been able to substantiate what that the effect with a 4x4 is in terms of precent load reduction.
The best information I have found suggests a reduction of 40% but that was not a 4x4.

Other information is that a revers pull over already made tracks will further reduce the load needed by about 10%. This though requires a winch on the back of the vehicle or a second vehicle with a winch. The other option is some of the reverse winching ideas on the web.

[Rocket55]

What happens to the load on the winch and rope etc. when you winch up and over an embankment. You know, when the car is pointing up a significant short hill and the rope is near horizontal going to the anchor point, and when you hit the button you get that fantastic feeling of the front suspension compressing with bugger all forward movement.

I could get the slide rule out and work out the effective forward load, then a bit of Pythagorus' Theorem to work out the winch load based on the angle of the hill, but really once you compress the front end a couple of inches (dependant on spring rates), it's really time to stop and reconsider your options.

[outback]

Thanks for that. More useful than you may have thought.

Anyway it would appear to be more of a futile exercise so it not worth pursuing..

[MudRunnerTD]

What happens to the load on the winch and rope etc. when you winch up and over an embankment. You know, when the car is pointing up a significant short hill and the rope is near horizontal going to the anchor point, and when you hit the button you get that fantastic feeling of the front suspension compressing with bugger all forward movement.

I could get the slide rule out and work out the effective forward load, then a bit of Pythagorus' Theorem to work out the winch load based on the angle of the hill, but really once you compress the front end a couple of inches (dependant on spring rates), it's really time to stop and reconsider your options.

I have broken my rope a couple of times in exactly that circumstance.

[Rocket55]

Yeah it's a bugger of a situation ay. You watch the front compress and then it's seat of the pants stuff as to when to let the button go. This is also how most comp trucks break their ropes. You can build some mega forces real quick.