Thread: Winches and wire cables - Help

Originally Posted by travelrover

Hi team

I have an el cheapo Super&^%$p 'no names' winch (which looks suspiciously like a Ridge Ryder) on my 300Tdi Defender. This is my project vehicle so lots of work in progress activities going on. Those include fitting a deep cycle battery and charge splitter of some sort. So the winch has never been used.

Anyway, this vehicle is now completely bogged to the diffs in very very soft ground, a result of 500mm of rain on already soaking ground (and heavy rain forecast for the next ten days). I have tried numerous approaches to get it out but the ground is just too soft, the more you dig the more it turns to the consistency of porridge. We managed to get an excavator bogged trying to get to the Defender to pull it out.

My latest plan was to use an old cranking battery and wire up the winch to this and jumper that battery to the cranking battery in the vehicle to keep some charge up. This has worked well. My problem now is as I said the winch has never been used so never had the cable run out/in properly. I was pulling the cable out on freewheel and there was a banging sound each revolution and on inspection the tail end of the cable (the red end) was flapping around on the drum and whacking the controller sitting above the drum. I had only pulled out about five feet of cable at this stage. Peering at the drum the red painted cable was all over the place so maybe was never run on properly at the manufacture. I really couldn't see any other option but to pull the whole 28 meters off the drum and try and feed it on correctly. Got it off with a lot of jiggling to avoid damaging the unit. The inside end (the red end) has an eye on it like a large electrical connector that would go over a bolt or post. I couldn't see anywhere were this would have connected to the drum, no bolt holes, and my google research has not suggested anything like this either on vehicle mounted winches. I tried unsuccessfully to secure this end tightly to the drum with cable ties until i could get enough rolls on the drum to grip sufficiently. Well the cable ties worked just not the securely bit.

My dilemma is how on earth are you supposed to get a wire cable on the drum in-situ? I am sure it can be done I just cant see how. What is the trick?
Or should I just not waste my time and go for a synthetic cable? What issues will I have spooling that on to the drum?

Oh and there is another Defender, my Td5 bogged behind this one. The winch on that has a dead solenoid but either way the 300Tdi has to be moved first...

Appreciate any guidance!

Whipping on top of a rolling hitch. Wire in a rolling hitch then whipping ( wrapping) with the heaviest fishing line leader or similar. two to three turns on a Drum was almost capable of moving a ship with just a sailor adding the tension to hold it to the drum. That was with rope. Suspect whipping three plus turns of wire just might help lock it in IF you can get several ore turn on the drum before it is under full load?

I fully agree with the dyneema rope which is so good to tie and lock so much better than wire. Good luck.

This is the mess left trying to get the excavator out after it sank. This was nice green pasture a couple of hours before. As you can see it looks like a boiling mud pool in the middle.

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

Whipping on top of a rolling hitch. Wire in a rolling hitch then whipping ( wrapping) with the heaviest fishing line leader or similar. two to three turns on a Drum was almost capable of moving a ship with just a sailor adding the tension to hold it to the drum. That was with rope. Suspect whipping three plus turns of wire just might help lock it in IF you can get several ore turn on the drum before it is under full load?

I fully agree with the dyneema rope which is so good to tie and lock so much better than wire. Good luck.

Thanks Navydiver

Do you think the old Telstra draw rope would be would be ok for this? Am sure I have some of that lying around…

Thats not a bog hole it's a Swamp, You would loose a D10 in that slop.

Originally Posted by travelrover

This is the mess left trying to get the excavator out after it sank. This was nice green pasture a couple of hours before. As you can see it looks like a boiling mud pool in the middle.

No Pics - My family bogged a tractor, They got the other one to extract it and bogged it as well. Another bigger one was brought in and bogged it as well. The Biggest was obtained and yep it sank. 2 months later they all drove out. That was 30 plus ago in Western Districts Vic

Looking the other way toward the Defenders

Originally Posted by travelrover

This is the mess left trying to get the excavator out after it sank. This was nice green pasture a couple of hours before. As you can see it looks like a boiling mud pool in the middle.

Someone on here posted something similar to that from the US on the toob recently.

Was a real mess after the big mofo excavator got the smaller one out.

Good luck! DL

Just a suggestion from experience.
When a car is well and truly stuck in mud, one of the big problems is the suction from the mud.

In this case I have found that you may need 2 methods to remove a stuck vehicle.

An air bag placed under the front of the stuck vehicle will lift the front up enough to start a winch pull, and it will roll over and have to be repositioned under the front at say 1 metre intervals. Ramps could also then be placed under.

I discovered this when the four wheel drive club I was in went to Mudgee where it is "vomit country", a thin layer of topsoil with porridge under it. Every car got bogged and it was an all day job getting them out.
Regards PhilipA