Winch cable length?

lee467

lee467

Forum Member
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
Messages
26
Location
Newcastle, NSW
Car Year
2015
Car Model
Forester 2.5iS
Transmission
CVT
I have been given an old, heavy duty Tirfor on permanent loan, I believe a TU-28. Its cable is similarly old, and has a very small eye on the end, too small to fit a 3.25T shackle, even too small to get my new soft shackle through....
So I am going to replace the cable.

I can't work out why I'd ever need 20m of cable, given it's weight, and the fact I would not have the energy to actually crank the vehicle over that distance!

I thought I'd get 10m of cable, with a nice big eye on the end, and buy another winch extension strap for safety, in case the trees are sparse.....

Can anyone offer reasons why I shouldn't do this?? I can't think of any.....

cheers - Lee
(running out of boot space due to recovery gear!)
 
In a trial run I winched the Forester up my driveway on the weekend, probably less than a vehicle length - I'd hate to try and pull it along the whole 20m!
 
rather than having a huge, heavy length of cable, why not have a short run (say 5m) of cable for the tifor, and a long length of 8mm spectra/dyneema (which weighs relatively nothing) to make up any distance you need.

After a few meters of grunting, you're going to want a rest anyway and can re-set the lengths.
 
lee467 said:
In a trial run I winched the Forester up my driveway on the weekend, probably less than a vehicle length - I'd hate to try and pull it along the whole 20m!
Click to expand...
Not that simple! Agree you may only need to winch the vehicle a couple of metres but.....
You will be winching off a tree or another vehicle, also add a snatch block and you only have 10 metres of cable. You may also need a winch extension strap.
 
duncanm said:
rather than having a huge, heavy length of cable, why not have a short run (say 5m) of cable for the tifor, and a long length of 8mm spectra/dyneema (which weighs relatively nothing) to make up any distance you need.

After a few meters of grunting, you're going to want a rest anyway and can re-set the lengths.
Click to expand...

This is what I was thinking - I hadn't thought of using dyneema though, that would work well with a snatch block too.... cheers....
 
havachat said:
Not that simple! Agree you may only need to winch the vehicle a couple of metres but.....
You will be winching off a tree or another vehicle, also add a snatch block and you only have 10 metres of cable. You may also need a winch extension strap.
Click to expand...

I have one winch ext strap, was going to grab another - this would give up to 40m reach on top of the winch cable.....

For a snatch block I would then also need some synthetic winch rope, wouldn't I??
 
No, block and cable is fine.
 
How about synthetic rope?
 
The winch itself absolutely needs a specific steel cable to 'creep' along, I was under the impression this fairly stiff cable would be damaged if it was pulled around a pulley - so a synthetic rope, attached to the cable would be needed if you want to use a snatch block for decreased cranking effort....
 
Get the biggest diameter snatch block you can find, it won't damage the cable. Engineering manuals usually sat 18 times the diameter of the cable, not that I've seen any 4wd snatch blocks that big so don't know what's going on there.

Just remember with a block you'll double the line pull capacity, at the downside of you needing the crank the winch twice as much to cover the same distance. You also need to winch from an ancor pointstrong enough AND in line with the direction of pull, so the more length at your disposal the better. It's even more important with a tirfor style winch to be using a strong ancor point in the bush since you'll be winching from it, last thing to do is pull a tree down on yourself.

Self recovery gear is heavy stuff and I can see how its be nice to carry less of a it, last thing to find out though is you don't have what you need when you go to use it. Oh! And buy yourself some spar shear pins
 
idw said:
Self recovery gear is heavy stuff and I can see how its be nice to carry less of a it, last thing to find out though is you don't have what you need when you go to use it. Oh! And buy yourself some spar shear pins
Click to expand...

Isn't it heavy..... and bulky..... given a lot of our drives will be sedate, you just never know when you might need this stuff, and with kids in the car, you can't be too careful.

Spar shear pins - not sure on that one - as far as I can tell, and handle is a length of gal pipe?
 
Last edited:
ateday said:
A good long handled spade works wonders and does not weight much.
Won`t pull you out of a bog though but may stop you getting into one.
Click to expand...

I have several post hole shovels here, but nowhere to stow them in/on the car as yet, grabbed a Cyclone 'camping and 4wd' shovel at Cunnings today, fits quite nicely in the boot, I was going to grab a folding shovel, but they all look pretty flimsy.....
 
The great thing about a spade is you manage to extract the vehicle through the power of your own frustration and swearing...I've had to do this many times.
 
lee467 said:
Isn't is heavy..... and bulky..... given a lot of our drives will be sedate, you just never know when you might need this stuff, and with kids in the car, you can't be too careful.

Spar shear pins - not sure on that one - as far as I can tell, and handle is a length of gal pipe?
Click to expand...

Lee, shear pins are part of the ratchet mechanism. If you put too much pressure on the handle, the shear pin will shear, rather than you breaking the winch. They are usually easy to replace in the field - IF you have a spare ... :poke: :iconwink:
 
I've just downloaded a manual for the winch, there are three shear pins in the handle hub mechanism, I must say they don't appear to be easily field replaceable... will have to look into it more, and make sure I have, or get some spares....
 
A long handled shovel, despite being a tad awkwardly shaped, is the best choice as it enables you to reach in further under the car and stay just a bit further away from the muck.
 
OK - I picked up the rope....
I have a concern now about the soft eye, when I was talking to the supplier, the hard eyes they had still seemed fairly small, so I went with a large soft eye. He mentioned the eye would provide abrasion resistance to the rope, given the low frequency of use, I thought we'll be fine (really hoping frequency of use is zero!)....
Now I look at it, and think about it, I worry a little about the abrasion to the polyester straps and soft shackles that will be looped through the eye....
What do people think? Should I re-investigate a hard eye?
 
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