Lets talk ELECTRIC WINCHES

[Graham]

Having had nothing at all to do with winches, I am totally clueless.

All I know is they seem to come in 2 predominent sizes.
There is the 9,000 lbs and the 12,000 lbs.
Am I right? probably not knowing my brain.

Do these make up the vast majority of the electric winch market? or is there another size included?

Now for perhaps a more varied answer, which I am sure you guys will be able to help me out with.

What is the names of the winches that springs to into your mind ?

I only know 2,

Warn
King One.


Now there must be loads of names, so if any one can put them in some sort of "prefered order list" regardless of cost, (as you have just got the 6 numbers in the roll over)
Or for the other workers and slaves, mere mortals, a "value for money ordered list"

Gra.

 

[fridayman]

Goodwinch
Tigerz11

 

[Chris]

Come up. Nice product. South African?
Warn. Bag of American s***e
King One - branded here as TDS Goldfish I love 'em
Superwinch. Pretty good.

Chris

 

[Paul_Humphreys]

Most common size use to be 8000lb. If you want a good one look for Gigglepin!! But it is a lot of money. Superwinch always seem to work where on the other hand (as Chris has put above) Warn tent to never work when you want them to.

 

[Chris]

I'd better qualify the Warn statement. The 8274 is a hugely popular winch and seems to work very well, even if it does need rebuilding now and then. It's the rest of their winches and their customer support that are utter rubbish.

OK now that's clear.

Chris

 

[BrendanB]

Have two Warn 9.5XP on our red 110 and they are good.

Have used them to pull out vehicles with cheaper winches fitted which have failed!


The 8274 has been made for 38 years now so it is hardly surprising some have been rebuilt!

When people start talking about winches, my first question is do you actually NEED one? Want and needs are different things.

A GOOD winch set up does not come cheap!

Most people fit a single winch on the front of their vehicle. Unless you are doing competitions then a rear winch may well be more useful as it can be argue that a front winch may well take you deep into the mire, whereas a rear winch can get you back onto driveable terrain faster. However a neat installation of a rear winch is more difficult then a front one.


Brendan

 

[Chris]

I have front and rear. There are some neat recovery opportunities with two that aren't possible with the single.

My experience of Warn was not performance related. It pulled just fine. When it was working. It was a quality issue. In terms of 8274, I have not owned one, but know people who do and they both love and hate them. Great performance, but constant problems. They're not ones that are very old and need a bit of love, these are newer but require constant attention.

Really cheap winches are, I'd agree, not worth the grief. I don't think that any of the winches on the list would fall into that category. I have never stalled an electric winch and I really have been very deeply embedded. However, I did find that the Warn cut out a lot more when it got warm.

What gets me is the constant procession of vehicles on P&P sites that turn up with a rope wound around the front bumper and nothing more. Having at least ONE winch might be start.

Chris

 

[BrendanB]

People turning up at P and P sites (which I personally dislike) with a rope wrapped around front bumper are not showing respect to their gear. UV exposure, exposure to dirt, damage from flying debris etc.

Show respect to your gear and it will serve you better.

At p and p sites no NEED for a winch as there are other vehicles around to extract you.

WANT a winch, can afford one, then that is a different story.


Brendan

 

[Chris]

Hey Brendan, when I said rope, sometimes it's not even that. I came to rescue a lad the other day who could not actually open his doors he was that deep, who didn't have any recovery points. Not that I could see anyway. He indicated that he had and when we looked, it was a bracket with a 100mm x 8mm bolt running across it. I see a lot of people with no gear and no idea (as opposed to all the gear and no idea naturally) who have bought some MOT failure for £450 and bring it to play with. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but the thought of spending the best part of a grand on a winch? I guess it's not going to happen. In the mean time I get lots of winching practice.

If you have winches but dislike P&P do I take it that you go to more organised events then? I wouldn't mind that but we tend not to see any around here and besides, I like pootling around in the trees pulling out people with no winches

Not sure I enjoy it enough to do competitive winch challenges, but I'd like to go and see one. I guess that Milemarker are one of the big names in that field.

Chris

 

[BrendanB]

Hi Chris, when I use our winches it is normally for self recovery. We travel as a solo vehicle quite a lot and then you are totally self reliant. Mobile phones etc are not much good when you are out of signal and nearest house is at least 200 miles away!

I do not like P and P because of people with cheap runabouts who have no idea what they are doing, don't care if they wreck there car, can not drive them and are a risk to my personal safety and to my vehicle!

The Muddy Truckers is on around Helmsley in a fortnight time. If you want to see winches in action go along. Jim Marsden Gigglepin can winch faster uphill then people can drive it. Impressive in action is an understatement but then you are talking £5k +

Brendan

 

[Crushers]

8274, toughest winch on the market bar none. i have been running them for 30 years now and have tried different low profile winches. no comparrison in speed, reliability, strength and pure uglyness.

downside, you need to stay on top of the selenoid pack. if you play in deep water or mud then pull the cover and wash the poor thing once in a while. also it doesn't hurt to put white elec grease on the connections when you do your vehicle greasing (you blokes do grease your joints once in a while, right?)

i run a 12V 8274 on 24V for the last 3 years and have done hard short pulls, long hard pulls, long soft pulls, pulled 2 vehicles strapped together up steep hills and the bugger just won't quit. (not recommended as the speed of the winch is very dangerous, no load rewind speed is a fast walk to slow run for the guy on the hook end)

remember, a winch is to get your ass out of what your right foot got you into.
also, in many situations, it can mean life or death or serious injury if it doesn't do the job.

if you just want "pretty" then any one of the low profile winches will work just fine. i have a warn 8274-50 going on the front and a super winch 9500 going on the back of this build:
http://forum.ih8mud.com/70-series-tech/ ... tions.html
the super winch is only if the front slides of the beaten path when he is blowing snow, not for heavy duty recovery.

just my opinion, some will accept it, some will find fault.

 

[Ben]

loving the work your doing on the BJ70 Wayne.

just read every page!

 

[Crushers]

didn't mean to jack the thread , just wanted to offer an opinion ...
but thanks for the compliment all the same.

 

[sae70]

No ones mentioned the Hi-Lift jack as a good winching option as yet

I've also recently acquired an 8m 10Ton heavy duty ratchet strap that you can get a good 22" pull on before having to reset it, surprised me



edit - Ooops, sorry just saw the thread title I wonder if I could fit a starter motor to the Hi-Lift

 

[silvercruiser]

I have a warn 9.5xp on the defender and it works everytime i need it. i have allbright solenoids, its hard wired inside the cab and hard wired to buttons on the wing. and i always give it a good clean and once a year take it apart clean/grease and re seal.

Joe

 

[Paul_Humphreys]

Well you can use a front winch to pull you backwards if you know what you doing with it.

 

[BrendanB]

Or just get a PTO centre winch. Much quicker and easier!


Brendan

 

[MuckyPup]

Blimey, one can of worms well and truly opened........

Ok, firstly avoid any Ramsey or their twin KEW winches unless you really know your winches.
The very old pre 2000 Ramsey were very good, comparable to a Pierce and this is the good name they now trade on with some god awful junk also badged as KEW

Now it gets tricky.........
There is basically zero quality control when it comes to winches and David Bowyer was well known as a supplier way back in the day for the simple reason that he "Commissioned" (PDI'd, checked, tested) all the winches he sold. So a good "no name" winch can be better than a bad "known name" winch very easily.
So, if you've won the lottery or simply don't want hassle, ring Goodwinch and hand over your credit card details. If your life is likely to depend on it then ask them to commission it and fit it too.
Job done, question answered.

Failing that, if you don't mind the all up weight of 50kg and you've got room for a 10,000lb Superwinch Husky then that's the one to go for. Worm drive (no brakes needed) pull all day, fairly weather proof etc, etc but sloooow, then again they're slow with or without a load.
This is the one you see hanging off the front of utility landrovers where they may well have winched themselves a mile or so through a wood or field the day before...... and possibly will tomorrow too.

If you had the room for that and didn't mind the weight but wanted something quick for fast retrieval between little pulls then the Warn 8274 is what you might want. Probably block most of the airflow to your rad though and will most definitely need commissioning before use. (Good old USA outsourced to Mexico years ago and in the US "Mexico" is spelt the same way the UK spells China)
Bin the tin can solenoids, accept the fact the clutch will need constant maintenance but for speed nothing comes close. Limited to 8000lb on a good day with the wind behind it though, but should in theory be enough.

Now your probably settled on what's referred to as a "low line" electric winch.

Is it going to sit on the front of your truck, neglected and abused from month to month before finally being required on the occasional blue moon ? Get a dunking in the Corwen carwash and never warmed through afterwards ?
Get a Kingone or the Warn with full face seals and seal the motor with non acetic silicone.
Nothing else comparable (to my current knowledge)

Is it for looks ?
Get the cheapest you can find on ebay.

This is now almost entirely down to pot luck.......
We're now talking marginal differences in quality control separating them and even more marginal differences in manufacturing tolerances.
Come-up seems very middle of the road all in all, a quite safe bet with good value.
T-max possibly ties with Come-up
Warn / Superwinch Ties with above but costs more.
Any of the hundred different names but same factory winch on ebay, take your chances really. Might be a good one, might not, but same goes for Warn etc.......

Size wise, also depends on commissioning........
A good 8,000lb installed well will out pull a bad 16,000lb however it's installed and be quicker.
But if a loaded LC needs more than a well installed good 9,500lb then i'd suggest a good spade, some sweat and trying again. (A good, well installed 8,000lb can pull a 7.5t 4 wheel truck sunk to it's front axle / rear diff in turf/soil on 1st, 2nd and 3rd layers before beginning to stall)
A Good, quality battery (as opposed to a good battery) a healthy alternator (and 1000rpm) 35mm2 leads (if less than 1meter, 50mm2 if above 1meter) Good cable earthing and good connections are all parts of a winch installation.
Hopefully that goes some way to explaining why "mate1" swears by xyz when "mate2" swears AT xyz.....

Please, please don't ask about rope

 

[Graham]

Thanks, thats a very useful and informative post.
Lots of variables, lots of altternatives.

So traditionally, you get what you pay for ----------- most of the time.

Gra.

 

[Crushers]

actually, Warn 8274-50 get their parts from China ...

but

they deny it when questioned over the phone.

i find it interesting that so many blokes drop the $2400 CND for a brand new 8274 and had so many issues before even using it.

or are we talking used and neglect 8274s?