Thread: Winch Cable - Hard or Soft Eye

I looked at my 101 today winch wise for you Garry.
The cable going though the removable fairhead is not really the problem.
If running the cable to the front ,the cable must feed though the two pulleys just to the rear of the front wheel.
The pulleys have a metal guide running close to them which is not much bigger than the cable.
the standard 101 cable end fitting has been worked out well size wise.
The lenght of the end fitting is important too.
The lenght is important enough to be long enough to push thought the fair head with a pulley unbolted and be able to grab it to pull the cable though.
If it is too long it becomes difficult to feed though the pulleys behind the front wheel as you must change direction a bit with the end of the cable to do this,
The removable socket with wedge may be the way to go too over come these problems, or get a correct end made up on a lathe and then find someone who can hydraulic crimp it.
In practice I have only needed to change the pull front to rear or vise ..versa a few times.
The cable is usually on the rear with the fair head because of the bull bar laws.

It should be noted the split pin is removed by hand ( thats why it is a long one )
and the hook is removed from the end of the cable to transfer the cable from rear to front.
The whole process takes about 5 mins.

correct.

but your cables SWL is supposed to be something like 25% over the rated bottom line pull rate of your winch and the hook sets the SWL for the whole shebang.

A 15/16 spanner is used to remove one roller bolt on the fair head so the cable can be pulled though as
the gap between the fair head pulleys is only big enough for the cable and this bolt is kept lubricated.
With one pulley removed(easy job) the hole in the fair head is large enough.


My front outlet for the fair head mounted on the Bull bar.

Winch location on a 101

I will be investigating to find the correct swage - but in the meantime I have a hard eye and will use that and not plan on moving the cable from the front to the rear.

But back to the original question though - I put the hard eye in on the advice of the expert - but most Warn winches I have seen in car parks have a soft eye (indeed my cheap 15000lb ebay electric winch has one as well).

A soft eye on 9mm rope will fit through the fairlead housing and the chassis pulleys. If soft eyes are a "no no" why would a company like Warn and my no name winch company use soft eyes.

If a soft eye is a strong as other methods then I could stop searching for the correct swage and just put in a soft eye.

Garry

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

I looked at my 101 today winch wise for you get a correct end made up on a lathe and then find someone who can hydraulic crimp it.

On showing the wire rope guy a picture of your swage he said the smallest he had was too large - nearly 60mm across where the hook connects abd suggested as you did to get one made - however the four engineering companies I checked were not interested when I explained what it was for - obviously concerned how they would be implicated if it failed in service. The wire rope guy was happy to crimp it and test to swl.

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

In practice I have only needed to change the pull front to rear or vise ..versa a few times.

Did you have any problems feeding the standard swage through the pulleys and fairleads when moving the cable around.

Garry

the soft eye is as strong as the hard eye. But it doesnt last, once the rope is flattened or kinked where its been pulled at in the eye then its condemned and you have to put another eye in.

Thanks Dave - that is the sort of information I am after specifically related to the pros and cons. However the other information that has come out is really interesting and I will have a closer look at a Wedge Socket.

As always - thanks to Ron for your input - I will ask on the 101 site if anyone knows where I can get a genuine 101 cable swage.

Thanks

Garry