Thread: winches-electric or hydraulic?

Originally posted by RichardK+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RichardK)</div><div class='quotemain'>as said they will run all day without overheating.[/b]

Exactly the reasoning I used when I purchased the Milemarker myself all that time ago.
However I have never been in a situation where winching all day without a break was required!
Long hour recoveries, certainly, but never a day of straight winching. I'd stop and rest myself (and therefore the winch) every 15 minutes or so!!!

<!--QuoteBegin-RichardK
I'm happy with it and prefer it to an electric winch.[/quote]

And in the end, thats the whole point. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/img]

Cheers
Mike

Haven't had one, but I would have thought a bit of preventative maintenance should keep a hydraulic totally reliable e.g. replace the hoses every x years or x '000 kms.

There a lot of good stuff in the discoweb.org archives about the inadequacies of the std power steering pump for winching. If I went hydraulic, I think the maxidrive t/case pump would be the best way to go.

Just had my hi-mount serviced - apart from the normal mud & tadpoles in it, there was a locust from last year's plague in the solenoids!

Regards
Max P

Originally posted by RoverOne+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RoverOne)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-RichardK
I've got a milemarker imported from USA, all up cost around $1800.00 when AUD was 72Cents.
Winch is driven by a dedicated pump bought from Alfred Marks UK.
I'm happy with it and prefer it to an electric winch.

Was the pump bought seperate, it reads that way to me, if so how much.

A couple of guys with 130's in LROC in Sydney who have hydraulic winches have both two expensive winches/ dead useless weight on the front bullbar.

Their winches been on now about fours years each & were expensive then, and both hopeless on recovery in fairly easy recovery situations.

Of course running off the 1hp power steering pump. One guy is buying a (I think) a pto to run his at a cost from Maxi Drive around $1200, making his winch upwards of around $4000. Yours sounds a better deal.

Cheers
Bryce[/b][/quote]

The pump is the big factor in running a hydraulic winch.
The normal power steering pump, particularly in the early Rangies is a low pressure low flow unit which makes it unsuitable for a hydraulic winch, also by coupling the winch to the PS pump the PS pump has precedence so winchin may be very ordinary.
The ultimate is the PTO unit and the most expensive. I had 2 choices, a pump from where I bought the winch at US$100 which was too big to fit, or a modified Disco pump which I chose.
The cost? all up into Australia around $650.00.......expensive but it fits well and does a good job.

Ive only had an electric winch and I dont feel the need or see the point in changing to hydraulic or PTO. The be down factor being that it cannot run without the engine as explained in the above posts.

I have run into this problem, not due to water ect but a dead fuel pump.

At least with the electric you can keep yourself going / get to a safer spot and if your batteries are dead then you can jumpstart.

The other beauty of dual battery systems are the isolaters. Mine is done so it protects the cranking battery, so theoretically ( :roll: ) I will always have enough power to restart the car if it is not playing up [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]

Base hydraulic setups are great value, but the biggest expense if you feel the need is to upgrade the pump, lines, valves ect to create a reasonable line speed.

Once this is done, they are unbelievable 8) Niel Coopers Hilux in the Ateco Winching challenge had similar or better pulling speed to the 12v winches with 24v pumping through them with far less weight ect.