While I was waiting for the guy in the forklift to bring Buddy’s new axle around the front of the wrecking yard, I got a call from a guy I met at the garage sale I attended a couple weekends ago.
He didn’t have the cash for the item I had then, and he doesn’t have it now.
But, he has one of these with all the goodies, so I’m interested.
Things just keep popping up. I’m very glad the start of school is still over a week away. Hopefully this streak will be over by then.
Save yourself some money. Got mine here and it works just fine.
http://astore.amazon.com/cheap.discount.warn-winches.auto-20/detail/B000182DYM
“Worst” usage of it was helping out a friend driving a CJ-5 who had taken a “short cut” across what he thought was a snow covered meadow which he found out to be a (thinly) ice covered marsh. Ended up having to hook up three vehicles together to keep from pulling my S-10 Blazer in with him, but we got him out.
Actually, I made the deal with stuff for stuff: no cash involved.
Also, when I can do a twin-motor conversion to an M8000, making it worthy of 12K+, I might look into one. Until then…
Lastly, I hope the guy at least bought you guys a few meals. Stupidity of that magnitude deserves some form of punishment. Since he didn’t lose his Jeep, I hope he got more than just a case of testicular retraction.
Seeing as how 8000 lbs is twice what my vehicle weighs, I’m quite happy with my winch.
Things to consider before you do the dual motor 12K+ modification:
The 5/16″ cable that come with the winch has very little safety factor at 8K#, 12K# will break it. When I replaced my cable with 7/16″ that gave me a safety factor of 2.5. To get the same safety factor with 12K# you are looking at 9/16″ cable which is heavy and rather stiff to work with.
It’s nice if the winch bogs down before you bend or break something. Guy I used to work with tweaked the frame of his truck using the same mod as what you are talking about. After he got the frame straightened he then boxed it in and added stiffening plates which he should have done BEFORE modding the winch. Had the dubious privilege of watching a tourist from California bend and then remove the rear axle from his full sized Bronco near Moab Utah with a 15K#. (Somebody else gave him a ride out.)
For what it will cost you to get the 12K# mod, you can get 200 feet of 7/16″ cable (your next two winch cables) and a single sheave pulley and a twin sheave pulley for that 7/16″ cable. This gives you the possibility of pulling up to 32K# in an emergency. Nowhere near as fast, but you will have ALOT more options. (Yes, this is the kind of stuff I had to deal with when I was in the Navy.)
Take a serious look at the battery you are going to hook up to. Twin motors mean twice the amp draw. My winch is hooked up to a deep cell battery that is connected up to my regular battery by way of a Ford starter soleniod that is relayed so that unless the ignition is on AND the oil light is off that battery is separate from the rest of the rest of the electrical system. Unless I’m depressing a push button which is installed on the left side of the dash so I can jump myself off that battery in case I’ve done something stupid.
If you take the winch motors up to 12K#, the motor torque is no longer the “weak point”, you would be well advised to carry a spare set of drum bearings and the tools to replace them.
Now, in (limited) defense of the “Dunkee”. He was following a set of tire tracks. HOWEVER, he knew that the tracks belonged to my daughters Baja Bug which has enough tire to swim (think she was running about 14psi for tire pressure at the time). As for “punishment”, His new wife was (and stayed) in the passenger seat for this fiasco, seeing as how he only sank to just less that bumper deep, this was a good place for her. He did all the wading and then hosted us to a pizza dinner with all the extras (large amounts of good beer) a few days later.
When I pulled him out I had my 100′ cable with a hook on one end and an eye on the other through a single sheave pulley with the hook on my tow hook and the eye in the hook of the winch cable. That gave me a possible pull of 16K# with plenty of safety factor.
Well, good for “Dunkee”. A guy who shows proper thanks for getting saved is rarer than it used to be.
8K is more than twice the weight of my rig, so I’m sure it’ll do. However, I have seen a “stucking” so bad that I doubt that if I had put my rig there that 8K would do the job.
Long story short: Buddy had his brakes give out on a steep downhill incline in 3+ ft of snow. He was going to stop using a tree, missed, and ended up stopping his rig by wedging it between two trees. No axes or saws. We ended up just leaving the rig there and coming back in the Spring.
Gotta plan for all contingencies now. And thank you for the info on the other options. Definitely going to need a bigger “Recovery Gear” box.