Has anyone used a wheel winch? (aka Bush Winch)

peetsweet

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Apr 27, 2010
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6
Hi,

Has anyone ever used a wheel winch or the "Bush winch kit"?

www.bushwinch.com.au

It looks like a good idea but im pretty new to offroading and I dont want to waste my hard earned.

Thanks
Pete
 
That looks cool Peet I did not see if they will ship to the US.

Nate
 
"personaly" i dont like em. you've got a rope either side of your car, so what happens when you need to veer left or right for wheel placement or one wheel looses traction? also looks like your anchor points have to be straight ahead of your car and parrallel to some point. give me a hand winch anyday. other advantage to a hand winch is human power. dont need to rely on the cars power if the car wont start.
 
I do offroad training, including winching - I am yet to see anyone with one of these, and personally I have some doubts about them. I'd strongly suggest you get yourself a small Tirfor (or if you are strapped for $, one of the other reputable brands of hand winch). Slow, but very very flexible and useful pieces of gear.

If you do decide to get one of these wheel winches though, be sure to let us all know how if goes!
 
A lot of good points made. Thanks for your help. I can't find anyone who has actually used one of these.
I'll probably go for the hand winch

Pete
 
If you had sufficient storage for a bush winch it and your dollars are probably better used for a portable 12v winch
 
I was looking at these till I saw the price.

They are safe as the US Army used them constantly. They fell out of favor once the electric whinch was perfected.

I would buy one, but I can not see any reason why one would be almost 1000.00 dollars for what it is.
 
I would also question if it works with open diffs e.g. you could mount it on the rear and lose all your power through a front spinning wheel (or visa versa)
 
taza said:
Won't work with open diffs and AWD. As you can get one wheel spin!
Click to expand...


Not true if you know how to pretend you have an lsd. If you slightly appl the brakes it shifts power from one wheel to another and acts like a lsd, and mimics how modern traction control works, after all that is all it does anyway.
 
Gidday Kevin

Kevin said:
I would also question if it works with open diffs e.g. you could mount it on the rear and lose all your power through a front spinning wheel (or visa versa)
Click to expand...

I don't know when it was introduced, but Roo2 has LSD centre (standard since the 1993 Impreza) and an LSD in the rear.

It also has EBD, which according to some sources, is just a different name for traction control ... Both working by selectively applying individual brakes as required. I am happy to be corrected about this latter, as the Internet can be a very flaky source of information ... :iconwink:.

Upshot of all this is that the wheel winch should work well, but slow and difficult to deploy, and is much more expensive than buying an ARB Magnum creeper winch. The creeper winches are probably the most flexible of the lot, even beating electric winches for that aspect.

Other than running with them fitted to the rims all the time, just imagine trying to fit them when bogged to the eyeballs!
 
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This seems like the kind of winch I want (except for the oddly looking wheel nuts).

Of course, it has been 6-7 years since the last Subaru that would spin a single wheel like crazy rolled off the assembly lines, so that is not a concern (on VDC models).

https://www.bushwinch.com.au/shop-products-2/

The current price in USD is 430sh vs 330sh for a high quality hand winch. Plus shipping. Though adding the ground anchor, which looks extremely useful, would make the total price fairly ridiculous for such a simple product. But it is precisely the simplicity I like.

May inquire about my car just to know if it is even an option.
 
Not a fan. It would easily overpower the VDC system and the centre diff. Just stick to the tried & proven recovery tracks & winch :)
 
My old man and I used to use good old fencing wire. we wrapped it around the rear tyre, anchored the other end and slowly reversed the old Morris Cowley ute out of bogs or where we couldn't traction in the bush when it was wet.
Mind you, this was out in Riverrina NSW where it is flat too.

In hindsight, had the wire ever snapped it would have cut one of us in half or or taken our legs off.
 
Wow! This is an amazing .......




...... price.

Too bulky for my liking. If you are going to cart something thast size around, why not cart an electric winch? And if you want something small enough to keep under your seat, a hand winch is the go.

(Had my hand winch for years. Used it exactly twice. Once to rescue a bloke in a Commodore who was somewhere he certainly should not have tried to go in that car, and once to move a 10,000 litre water tank. (Not a full one, of course.) We had to move it to one side to dig a big hole to lower it into so that the inlet was lower than the shed roof. Did that easy-peasy by attaching a webbing strap to the tractor. But you can't push on a string and trees meant that we couldn't tow it back into the new hole from the other side, so I winched it back with the trusty hand winch. Took maybe half an hour instead of five minutes with the tractor, but did the trick.Tank is now full and we are good to stand a couple of dry suimmers.)
 
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