Thread: Pulling a truck with a flip flop winch

Useless for me. I can't remember how to tie ropes or knots. The limit of my knot tying is doing my shoelaces (and my wife and a friend laugh at how I do that). When I was in the VRA on Norfolk Island, they wouldn't let me anywhere near a rope because they mainly trained for cliff rescue.

Knots I tie don't stay as knots, they come loose or unravel.

I didn't like the way he tied to the towball hole. _a dangerous sharp edge. A shackle of suitable rating there and tie to it with a bowline. Certainly it rated a dampener, or two, like all winching.
Not enough power? Put in a snatchblock, albeit a bit slower. But very effective.

Originally Posted by rovers4

I didn't like the way he tied to the towball hole. _a dangerous sharp edge. A shackle of suitable rating there and tie to it with a bowline. Certainly it rated a dampener, or two, like all winching.

I was thinking exactly the same.
The was he was stepping over the live line, he hasn't been hit in the vulnerables of late. [

Semantics aside, the basic priciple works. Matching the size of the rope to the mass being moved, [ methinks a dedicated tow rope ] and following basic safety procedures , which we all should know, would make it doable and safe. A last resort , of course, and finding suitable logs could be a problem, but stuck on your own with a busted , or no, winch, doing something positive is better than doing nothing at all. But then again, a full esky eases the pain as well.

Years ago I went 4wd ing with a truckie (girl friends father at the time) who used a similar method to extract a vehicle which had slid down a steep slope lodging against a tree. Hours later it did not work.

Sheepishly I suggested cutting down the tree to allow the vehicle to exit onto a lower track.

Suppose that will work he said🙄

He was moving an unladen car on flat ground, in a location, and under conditions of his choosing, and only just managed it. Forget it.
.W.

I guess you would have to be sensible about when to use the principle , up a steep slope perhaps the size of rope, and length and strenght of the levers would have to increase exponentionally. A better option could be using a high lift jack, with a suitable kit , one of which was posted on AULRO by a NZ member some time ago. Still, doable along the flat, perhaps not so much up a hill.

Originally Posted by B.S.F.

He was moving an unladen car on flat ground, in a location, and under conditions of his choosing, and only just managed it. Forget it.
.W.

Don't think it is a procedure you would choose to do, if you had a choice. Plus a better rope would have been a good idea. However when all else has failed, it is an option. At the last resort, surely you would unload your vehicle as much as you could. I'll have to have another look at the video, I don't think he mentions his vehicle is unloaded, but perhaps he did.