Thread: Hydraulic drive of capstan winches

Originally Posted by normbourne

That is what I would call, a very serious, series 1.......! A beautiful vehicle...! Yes mate, I would be very proud.

Hi Norm

My photo's, but those series ones definitely don't belong to me, They are part of a collection of pictures I took when at Cooma for the 60th anniversary of Land Rover.

By the way, I wonder what happened to the 80" Land Rover that belonged to a very tough character called Les, I met him after leaving the coldest job in Townsville, driving the electric forklift in the freezer rooms, to hottest job, working in Simms Metal yards cutting railway iron in the direct heat of the day with a oxy torch.
He had a huge caravan that he pulled with his poor little Land Rover. He worked and lived in the Simms Metal yard with his wife, this was in 1973 after 'Gough got in we got out' ( Nasho ) .
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Hi Norm

I would not use those parts, but instead put a call out to see if you can get a complete PTO drum winch to put on the front of the Land Rover.

I think the amount of construction needed to mount the capstan, then find a pto or build the hydraulic dive would be too much work, compared with the work to mount a second hand drum winch.

So compared with the cost of a second hand electric winch say $350, as a brand new one starts about $750.00 , you would have to ask yourself could you build everything for under that cost.

When you are by yourself in a single vehicle recovery situation, a drum winch wins hands down over a capstan. Using a capstan really needs the driver in control of the car and at the same time with someone else keeping tension on the rope around the capstan bollard.





Sorry I sound a bit negative here, but I would consider another more powerful winch option first.

The good news is those type of capstans are about 50:1 ( not sure of actual ratio but they are about that order ), the power required to drive them isn't that much, so a small power steering pump ( like the off a 6 cylinder Holden ) and another one that is modified to act as a motor ( with drains' fitted to take pressure away from the seals ) would most likely be something that you could have a fiddle with without breaking the bank.

By experimenting with the coupling the hydraulic motor to the capstan with pulleys and a belt drive, a good compromise for speed verses torque can then be achieved.

Some one else may be able to tell you, then at bit more than a fast idle ( say about 1000 engine RPM ) what RPM the capstan bollard would rotate ( At a 50:1 ratio the capstan RPM would be 20 RPM ). The hydraulic motor I would think would run nicely at 2000 RPM, so by a reduction of 2:1 onto the input of the capstan, would keep the capstan bollard RPM still about the 20 RPM.
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