barngal6

Questions about winching:

I just bought a front bumper (frame) bracket I found used. Nothing big or pretty, but attaches in front of the bumper to hold a winch Having one has been on my "someday" list, and finding the bumper has made it a sooner rather than later project.

I've been reading up, and for my uses I want a hydraulic winch.
I haven't winched since I was a kid with my Dad towing huge boulders
out of the creek for mining

The winch will be mounted in front

My questions are:
1) Does winching from the front have any negative effect on my truck?
vs winching from the back?
2) Will my truck HOLD when winching out something big? I can't remember why it does't just get pullled forward for a big load...

I remember standing on the brakes with my Dad, but it seemed like we could usually manage a pull, although we were using block/tackle to get to the creek.

You comments will be much appreciated, I certainly will get a lesson from somebody when I get the winch

CTD NUT

For Constant duty heavy winching, hydraulic is definitely they way to go. For self vehicle recovery, electric is better suited.

One thing to keep in mind is if you are after a hydraulic winch like a Milemarker that taps into the Power steering and braking system, hydraulic power is used to also assist the brakes. So, when winching heavy objects that require you to be standing on the truck brakes, this will diminish the available hydraulic power to the winch. A stand alone PTO pump can solve this problem and also make it possible to use a winch with much higher pressure and flow requirements.

There is nothing wrong with pulling from the front of your truck when it is properly equipped with the appropriate winch mount.

barngal6

tha;nks,
I was hoping to rig a seperate hydraulic pump system, but i'll check into the pto...I put stuff togehter alot my self, but this is something I will definitely go to a dealer for. standing on the brakes seems likely when pulling out something that is stuck...

I'm not saying that I;ll never use for self recovery, but so far I"m usually trying to tow something else...forklift, tractor, stuff that gets stuck...

My thinking is:

it seems like electric winches have more dependability problems, although less as you buy more expensive equipment

Since I don't plan on using it regularly, I just think a hydraulic sounds like the way to go for me...especially if I have a seperate pressure system or PTO, seems like a hydraulic will still work for self recovery in a pinch, just goes slower and engine needs to be running. I'm mostly trying to get out of mud, not rivers...

thanks again1

CTD NUT

The hydraulic winch will work fine for self recovery. But an electric winch is notably better. The biggie is that the electric winch speeds up and slows down as the load changes so that makes it much more difficult to over run your cable when pulling yourself out (A high flowing PTO hydro winch will pull much faster than a PS powered hydro winch so the issue would be much less pronounced). And of course the truck doesn't need to be running. Also, the install is much more simplified and economical than a PTO hydro winch. A high quality Warn 15 or 16.5K electric winch will have very few reliability issues but I get your point. Heavy constant duty pulling = hydro winch.

PaulDaisy

This is the most incredible quote I have read recently!
There is ZERO advantage to an electric winch over hydraulic outside of installation simplicity, unless you buy into "needs the engine to run" hype. I have a friend who burned up 3 electrics and said, enough and went hydraulic and never looked back. He went out of jeeping and now his hydraulic is on my truck, center mounted over the rear axle. The electric winch will draw 400+ amps from your batteries and while it will run w/o engine running, once you're done with it the engine won't be running either as there's not going to be any juice left in the batteries to start it with!
I would never put an electric on a 7.5k lbs truck for any purpose. An ATV - probably, or a light weight rock crawler, but not a heavy truck, unless just for tough looks.
Just go to Milemarker.com and watch the winch comparison videos, that should tell you all you need for choosing the winch, and also how much pull will you get out of an electric winch on a fully charged battery.
When choosing, make sure you check the wire rope rating against the winch capacity. Some Warns are sent out with a 5/16" rope rated to 9,800 lbs and the winches are rated at 9,000 lbf. If you happen to slide the load and apply a shock load to the rope it can easily exceed the rating and break the rope. I would not go with less than 3/8" rope on a truck like ours (14,400 lb rating).

The hydraulic winch will NOT affect the brakes unless installed incorrectly. It is installed after the hydrobooster and takes off pressure after the booster gets its. If anything, under load the hydrobooster will get more pressure than without the winch. I have one installed so speaking from first hand experience.

dott

Go with a PTO powered hydraulic pump and you can winch all day long with no problem, assuming the engine is running. Electrics get too hot, even after only 100' of pull. If you don't keep up good batteries, you'll be having trouble there as well.

You can pull a lot more with the brakes locked and winching than you can trying to drive.

barngal6

How does a PTO driven hydraulic work? On a front mounted winch?

Quote: Originally Posted by CTD NUT
hydraulic power is used to also assist the brakes. So, when winching heavy objects that require you to be standing on the truck brakes, this will diminish the available hydraulic power to the winch


PaulDaisy, I think he was saying what you said, winch after the brakes, so if any decreased pressure it would be the winch.
Hearing stories like your firiend's about electric winches is what has me steering clear of them...I don't plan to use the winch that much, so it needs to be reliable...well, anybody would say that, but I need to know that if it sits for a year, its still going to be ready to go. Hydraulic winches seem to have that reliablitly. For all the negatives about hydraulics that I read, NONE of them has been unreliability. I'm not planning to pull logs all day, but I want it to be there when I need it, and if I"m pulling a mess that takes some time to extricate, I don't want to be worrying about how long the pulls are taking.

That said, what;s the deal with the electric winches adjusting the speed to maintain the cable feeding onto the spool? (is it really rope, or is this what cable is called now?)

As a kid that was a big deal. Our setup was: Mom in the truck
(engine running) operating the stop and go on the winch using the clutch; me at the winch feeding the cable, which could go right over the spool if I didn't pull hard enough, my brother telegraphing instructions from my dad in the creek to my mom in the truck, and oh yeah, everybody stopped when I didn't keep the cable on the spool and we had to freewheel it, not always at a good time for my dad's plan with the boulder...

Saftey etc a given, I'm hoping today's equipment has eliminated some of those hazards.

__________________

dott

The pump is mounted on the PTO adapter, hoses to the winch.

The only real problems with hydro winch are possible leaks and having the engine running for the winch to work. Of course, you'll want the engine running on electric also, but it will run off battery alone in a pinch.

Some models will speed up with less load. My worm drive is slow, no matter how much load is on it.

Wire rope, cable, rope, line.....

PaulDaisy

On the reduced hydro power to the winch.
Hydroboost is a static pressure device. No matter how much you stand on the brakes, it uses whatever pressure the steering pump has built up; flow is not important, and flow is what the winch motor needs. Just on a stock truck on idle, the pressure is whatever the booster is set to; the overflow goes to power steering and excess back to the pump. The flow through the booster to the downstream mounted steering pump is not reduced, otherwise you'd have steering difficulty any time you applied the brakes.
Leaks? They are possible with your stock hydraulics. Are they common? Not really. My adding the hydro winch in fact adds cooling to the system as I now have another metal block (motor) and extra metal fittings dissipating the heat under the truck.
Downsides? I am not sure. It is heavy, but they are all heavy. It required connecting, but any one would. It is a bit more connecting than a forward mounted electric but not enough to be an issue IMHO.
I wanted to go with a PTO pump but decided not to for three reasons: PTO pump is another $600; the winch manufacturer specifically says that a power steering pump is all you need; for a PTO pump I'd need an extra fluid reservoir, need to figure out where to put it, provide filtration etc. I decided that installing the thing is enough work in itself especially in the location I chose, and if you're unhappy you can always switch to a PTO pump. So far I have no reason to want that.

CTD NUT

Thanks! I'm flattered!


Paul,

I have both hydro and electric winches that are used in trying conditions. And I have done so for many years. I feel my experiences are credible for this debate. I am a big fan of hydro winches in the right application.

I cannot and will not speak for all electric winches. The market as been flooded with cheap import junk that has proven no where near as dependable or performs as well as something like a Warn. A Warn 15 or 16.5K electric will perform VERY well on CTD Dodge and is most certainly NOT outclassed by the truck. If someone is burning one of these winches up non stop, it is as a result of misuse plain and simple.

As for the "can't run your winch without the truck running", that is simply not true. I have been in several situations on dual battery equipped trucks where the winch was used to reel in many feet of cable to complete an extraction only to have the truck fire up again afterwards. 400 amps = stall amps at max load - not typical operating conditions. Typical operating amps are well below full load. Especially since the winch should not normally be used in those conditions for very long without risking damage.

Time and time again, I find myself doing a self recovery where I'm using the truck and the winch at the same to clear an obstacle. This allows for a quicker, safer and easier recovery. Almost always, when the truck gets a small burst of traction, the hydro winch would end up getting the cable over run by the truck because loaded and unloaded line speeds are the same. This makes for a slower more cumbersome recovery and can also cause the cable to spool goofy on the drum and potentially damage the cable. The electric winch simply does not have this problem - A quicker and easier recovery is the result.

^Does this mean you can't use the hydro winch for self recovery?? Of course not. I used a MM hydro for a few years and realized the electric was better for my application as a result.

Also, I could not steer and use the winch at the same time when trying to clear an obstacle the required a good amount of steering pressure and/or winch pressure. The pump simply did not have enough output for both - that really brought the suck in a few difficult situations.

I currently use a MM 12K hydro on the rear of my juggy and an Warn 8274 on the front. The MM blows away the 8274 for all out pulling power and it's 100% duty cycle. But honestly falls short on everything else. I NEVER over run the cable with 8274 - the line speed is stupid fast. It has 150' on the drum (MM has 100') so I can block at any angle without having to worry about having enough cable, has pulled me us some climbs without the engine running - and started the truck again, it makes short/quick work of recoveries, period. The MM does NOT perform like this. However, when I have to do a really heavy pull, the MM is used because it performs flawlessly for slow very heavy winch work - the 8274 just isn't that kind of winch.

Colo_River_Ram

You can also mount an electric clutch controlled hydraulic pump to the engine and run it off the fan belt. You are allowed 10 HP to the pump with this system which is more than ample to run a single winch.

A PTO mounted hydraulic pumps is rated up to 35 HP which is more than ample to run several winches, air compressor and / or a welder. If your truck has a standard transmission it is a bolt on system, the newer asian 6 speed autos can have a pto mtd pump as well it requires the pto prep option.

If this is to be used every now and then no cooling is required, a constant use requires a hydraulic radiator to keep it cool.

You can use solenoid controlled spool valves and have a cordless system to run them as well.. You could also have an accessory port on the spool valve to run a log splitter.

The only limitations to a hydraulic system is the thickness of your wallet

Hope this helps

barngal6

So....it sounds like it would be good for me to know what I want the winch for..
I guess I just thought it would just be a good thing to have on hand.
I guess I might want to pull myself out of the mud, but more likely I'll be pulling something else out of the mud...those are the problems I've had the past few years. For as often as I use it, the most important thing is probably having SOMETHING available to help.
Guess I need to start pricing options, keeping in mind paying too little might turn out to be a useless investment...
I sure appreciate everybody's point of view, it helps to know what all to take into consideration.

cLAYH

There are a lot of things that factor into this, wieght of your vehicle vs what you are pulling, how "stuck" what you are pulling is vs how much traction your rig has....

If you are pulling a load equal to yours and its stuck in the ditch and you are sitting on ice you are going to get sucked in. You can tie off the back of your truck to anchor it(to a tree or another vehicle) to prevent getting sucked in.

If you are in the same situation but sitting on dry pavemnt you will probably pull the load out without needing a anchor. If the vehicale can assist(spin its tires a bit) vs a dead pull makes a big difference as well.

Using a ****** block(pulley) will double your winches pulling capacity(but at half the speed). Using the pulley on the vehicle you are extracting and hooking the end of the cable to a tree or other solid anchor will reduce the likely hood of getting sucked in.

Last summer I was on a day run in a local 4wd area with my 4wd club. A guy in a Ramcharger asked us to pull him out. He had been in a mud hole all night. Because of where he was we could get near him with only two Jeeps. We hooked my Grand Cherokee to him with a Warn 9.5ti winch(9500#) and a CJ with a Warn 8274(8000#). He had been in all night an was stuck good and both Jeeps started to drag forward. We changed positions and I put a ****** block on the Ramcharger going to a tree right beside my Grand Cherokee and had the CJ anchor to me. Finally he started to move and once loose I was able to tow him back to the main road to wait for a tow truck as the engine was screwed from being swamped.

Carry some 20' and 30', 3" wide recovery straps with you. They can be used to anchor yourself off when recovering someone else or used a tree savers, loop the strap around the tree then hook your winch cable to the strap. This will prevent damage to the tree and the cable that would result from wrapping the cable around the tree and hooking it back onto itself.

annabelle

I think an electric winch is more versatile on a truck. I have mine mounted so I can move it to my rear receiver(you may want to go back where you came from), front receiver, or a receiver I welded to my utility trailer. Not to say that hydraulic isn't good. My buddy has a hydraulic PTO mounted winch from a 2 and 1/2 ton military vehicle. That winch will pull your truck in two. I prefer my 12000 lb Warn.

Mexstan

My hydraulic winch is slow, but will still take it over an electric.
When winching a heavy load I have discovered that it will pull the truck with just the park brake on, so now use 4 wd and the park brake. It works fine like that.