Centre mount winch!!!

[POS]

I want to increase my approach angle, to do this i either need to mount the rediator in the rear or mount the winch behind the cab.

Moving the radiator is not to many dramas but i was wandering has any one seen a winch mounted behind the Cab.

These are my concerns:

I need to run the cable underneath the cab and under the engine, to do this i would need to set up a series of rollers or ilets, my main concern there is if the cable overspools it may get tangled and would be a real pain.

I have thought about running pipe with bends in it so it cant go every where when it unspools.

The other concern is, am i by running the cable through a series of rollers or ilets increasing resistance and wear on the cable and putting inceased load on the winch.

Like i said i can quite easily mount the radiator in the back and move the winch back into the engine bay. I just thought this might be a simpler option.

Has any seen this style of whinch mounting?

I know the army has it on there landrovers.

Of course the other reason behind this is so i can pull the cable through from the front and winch backwards or winch someone else up.

Any ideas

Thanks Adrian

[Wendle]

Easier and safer to run it through a tube if you have the space to make it work.. (thinking out loud) down the side of the transmission and alongside the sump?

[suprasurf]

There was a couple of flat decks that ran the mid mount 8274's in the winch challenges without any probs. They both used tube for the cable.

One was set up so you could fix the hook up the front and pull a double out the rear onto a pully for a rear pull

[POS]

Did they have a roller setup or did they make some sort of eyelet out of cast steel so the cable wasn't running just on raw steel.

[RUFF]

Neil Lennard was the guy that could winch both ways.
He has his winch mid mounted and pointing backwards. The cable runs through a nylon lined tube to the back where there is a winch block mounted than back through another tube to the front. To winch farward you just pull the cable straight out but to winch backward you must use another winch block. It works well.

The only prob i see is if the cable birdnests on the spool it is a major PITA to get it off the drum and then you need to feed a new cable right through the liner again before crimping the eye on the end.

I will be mounting my winch behind the grill and fitting the rad out back with electric fans.

[Juzza]

Steel aircraft cable is PITA, have you thought of going with the purple string for this setup?

[POS]

no after seeing plasma at TTC i think its usless for what we do.

It sucked on rocks and i saw i competitor sit there for 5 minutes trying to untangle it and then when he finally set it up it snaped anyway.

I think for this set up plasma would tangle easier than wire cable.

[suprasurf]

Plasma's Ok for winch challenges in the mud etc but for rocks it's crap. Also its useless on anything other than the hi-mount winches, the drum on low mounts can get quite hot and damage the plasma.

[Juzza]

A couple of blokes used a nylon mesh sleeve on their plasma rope at the Vic winch challenge for using on rock.
The sleeve rests on the rock,etc and the rope slides through without being damaged. This appeared to work quite well and can actually be wound onto the drum as well.
Tangling of this stuff would indicate bad preparation and in the right hands this stuff is heaps faster to manage than wire rope.

[N*A*M]

Plasma is cool stuff but I couldn't justify the spending. I'm going to try mid mounting a winch pointing backwards with a block attached to the rear of the chassis and a tube (with a big flange on both ends) running under the car.

[Rut Slut]

A couple of blokes used a nylon mesh sleeve on their plasma rope at the Vic winch challenge for using on rock.
The sleeve rests on the rock,etc and the rope slides through without being damaged. This appeared to work quite well and can actually be wound onto the drum as well.
Tangling of this stuff would indicate bad preparation and in the right hands this stuff is heaps faster to manage than wire rope.

I was running the nylon sleeve in the Vic Winch Challenge. Didn't work as well as I had hoped as it tended to slide down the cable, and has difficult to move back up. I was running a 5 meter length, and will probably try a shorter length. Also had problems with it when it fed onto the drum, as it was very difficult to get it back out.

Birds nesting is a problem if you have to do more than 1 winch in a stage. After the first winch if you had to spool in the cable with no load, or sometimes even with load, the cable gets birds nested very easily, making it hard to spool out for the second winch.

I found that I was spooling most of the cable of the drum between stages so that it was spooled evenly for the next stage. Good thing is that it is much easier to untangle it on the drum that wire cable.

My last wire cable lasted 1 trip before it was damaged and needed to be replaced. The Plasma has so far been used for the Vic Winch Challenge, and several more hard trips and is still fine. If the cable lasts around 3 times as long as a steel would then price wise you are ahead. You also need to consider the safety factors, and how much nicer and easier it is to use. Would recommend it to anyone.