Thread: Hydraulic Winches...Any good?

they cant be to bad as the winches on the front of the army landies are hydraulic apparently

Only thing I have heard is that they are slow, you can run them off of your power steering pump, again apparently

so long as your engine is running they will run and no huge power drain like an electric one

Originally Posted by Hendrik

Hi All
What are hydraulic winches like, has anyone got one and what are your experiences with it?
Where do they get their oil from? Would love to know more about them....

You need to be a little more specific about the particular winch.

Most cranes have a hydraulic winch, as do many tilt tray tow trucks. Land Rover had a "Land Rover" branded hydraulic winch in the 1960s and 1970's, then there are also current model winches that use either a PTO pump or the PAS pump to supply the hydraulic fluid pressure.

a mate of mine has one hooked up to his power steering, works really well, however when you move the steering wheel it does does take some of it performance away i.e. slows down. i'm not sure how the fluid temps go with only having a small reservoir

best setup would be a pump driven from the t-case, M R sell them, they are the ones maxi drive used to make, if i didn't have a pto driven winch i would have one of these with its own reservoir = winch all day...i'm only guessing but i reckon you would be able to adjust the speed of the winch by using the accelerator

not sure hw much room is on a td5 but i am also guessing you would be able to set a second pump up to be driven of the engine

I looked into fitting a hydraulic winch to my 300Tdi using a Mercedes W124 Tandem Pump. The tandem pump is basically a pump with two circuits, one for the PAS and one for the MB SLS. The issue of drilling the LR PAS pump pulley to fit the tandem pump is easy enough, but trying to mount and align it properly and access all the fittings in that alloy casting looked way too hard.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

You need to be a little more specific about the particular winch.
.

might be the OX ? branded one that either TJM or Opposite lock sell

search the forum, pretty sure a guy from WA posted a good brand to buy, i think he fitted one to a D3

I don't know anything about them directly , but I do know one was fitted to my D1 before I bought it.

It was an Ox hydraulic winch that was run from the power steering.
The previous owner said it was good, but that the power steering on the D1 was not up to the job, and he consequently broke the pump.
He replaced the pump, but the bugger kept the winch for his next 4wd.

It was definitely run from the power steering, but who knows how true the rest is.
I also definitely know it was an Ox hydraulic winch as the operation sticker is still under the bonnet.

By winch I mean the one on the front of a 4wd, I found one on ebay for a reasonable price, and was just wondering what they are all about. I think it would work well on a td5, maybe get rid of the idler and fit another steering pump or ACE pump (I have a non ACE model) and run it off that.
That way you can winch all day without it getting hot or draining the battery, the only down side is you can't winch if the engine isn't running...but that is the same case with a PTO winch.

I was just checking the figures on the TJM OX and it gives figures of 5 LPM flow and 11,000 PSI.

RAVE gives a maximum operating pressure of 1,100 PSI at full lock 1000 rpm for a 300Tdi.

Might be worth checking the ACE ans PS pump flow rates and pressures.