More on Recovery

[John]

This seems to have been posted in a number of forums but nonetheless here is a link to what I consider to be a very good series of training videos on the subject of using winches for off-road recovery.

http://bb.bc4x4.com/showthread.php?1522 ... t-brush-up

Some opinions of my own;

The instructor only makes passing mention to the importance of keeping the incoming winch line perpendicular to the mounting axis of the winch. It is not always possible but failure to do this will limit the length of the pull as the cable will quickly spool up on only one side of the winch which gets very messy if it goes too far.

I feel that it is also important to note the need to have your cable tightly wrapped on the drum before attempting any pulls. Last summer I was at a Land Rover club event where we had the need for a winch recovery. One of the participants, eager to put his brand new winch to the test, volunteered for the recovery. The brand new cable, neatly wrapped on the drum was payed out and the rigging was completed. As soon as a load was put on the cable the line cut through what was now obviously a very loosely series of wraps on the drum. What a mess! We could not complete the pull and it was very difficult to unwrap the bound up cable from the drum to rectify the situation and what had been brand new cable was now irreversibly kinked effectively making it unsafe for future use.

Cable should always be spooled onto the winch under load to prevent this from happening. I would do this by anchoring the cable to a rigid object and spooling it in be either pulling the vehicle up a slight grade of setting the handbrake to effect a suitable load to keep the cable taut.

Enjoy the videos!

[rezdiver]

good post, not bad videos for anyone starting to get into winching and rigging.

another thing to note is that he mentions that a shackle size and strength is measured by the pin size, this is incorrect. a shackle size is measured by the diameter of the body.

[rayhyland]

I do have a PS pump driven hydraulic winch, and I'd say it does have close to a 100 % duty cycle, but I also have a large extra fluid reservoir and a large dedicated fluid cooler (with fan cooling of the cooler) for this purpose.

I would assume (hope?) the guy in the vid has that too, as it seems stupid to buy a hydraulic winch and not invest in the necessary cooling items at the same time...

The downside is of course that it is embarrassingly slow...

Ray