GQ PTO winch (factory)

[turps]

So what are people finding to be a good oil to lube with.
TOTAL Carter EP680 or ELF ReductElf SP680 oil is this still the good stuff (taken from another thread).

Also how much cable do these things have and how much 11mm rope can be fitted. As was just looking at mine which arrived yesterday. That the drum is quite narrow.

Oh and if anyone wants pics of one while there sitting a box. I can do that.

[GQ TROL]

We use ELF, but the TOTAL is exactly the same, so its up to you.

We were able to extend and widen the drum without having to lengthen the centre shaft to fit 50m of 11mm Amsteel Blue. Theoretically, I can fit over 70m on it, but by using only 50m allows it to all bunch up on one side if winching round a corner.

Mate uses 40m of 10mm Amsteel Blue on std sized drum.

Watch out for the cast alloy wings on the drum snapping off when loading rope onto one side or the other.

[killer_garden_gnome]

i had about 35 metres of 8 mm on mine and yeh they are a small drum so id image ud get around 30 of 11 mm on there, thats wire too not rope rope u might get more....nothin an extension strap cant fix

you might also wanna look at the mounting of your winch, i duno if your puttin in the factory position but mine overlapped itself one day and (obviously cant be watching your cable as your winching) the wire piled up and jammed between the drum flange and the chassis crossmember behind it, hurt the wire a little bit but required me to pull the whole winch off to rectify it not to mention if your bogged or stuck somewhere you ll be doin it where ur stuck.

as for oil i think i have 600 Titan oil i cant really recall the brand

If you have never seen one of these in action id recommend swapping the standard shear pin with something stronger too, guarentee youll shear it first use.

[turps]

Cool didnt realise these drums can be windened and havent looked real hard at it as its still sitting in the box. Might get that done before it actually makes it on a car.
As I have time as I dont have a car for it yet.

As for shear pins I did have a Thomsh PTO. So have delt with shearpins before. And speaking of them where did you guys get them? And I might have some left over from my previous winch. But being a thomas it might have a differnt wormdrive ratio.

[killer_garden_gnome]

hahah yes shear pin . Grade 8 bolt works well.....no seriously i hav a grade 8 bolt in the winch end but still has the nissan one in the pto end yours should have two as well id imagine. id be guessin nissan would be the ones to gett the proper ones from, but i have also used brass and copper but i found them to shear way to easy if all else fails a bit of mild steel round bar would be a safe bet it will shear but under a fair amount of load

[GQ TROL]

For shear pins, we machine down stainless rod. Found they would break more reliably/consistently than a high-tensile bolt. Of course without the proper shear-pin, the winch is more likely to be damaged by overloading. Typically its the bronze worm wheel that starts chewing out.

To widen the drum, you need to machine off the neck on the gear housing and re-machine the collar to fit the oil seal back in. When you make a new wider drum, reduce the centre diameter down to about 60mm or so. That will allow you to fit more rope, but it does reduce the winching speed when its down to the last few wraps on the drum.

[turps]

Shear pins. Sounds good I sort of have access to a lave.

Drum widning. Think I might have to get it out of the box and get the cable off to work out what I need. But I should be able to work it out. How much wider is it posssible to go and still have it fit between the rails?
And does the drive shaft stay the same length (the shaft that goes from gear box to hub)?

[GQ TROL]

We've kept the centre shaft length as standard, machined the neck off the gear housing and extended the drum up to the housing. Left enough gap between drum and housing so the fixed end of the rope could be fed thru the side of the drum and secured.

Allows drum to be lengthened by 45-50mm.

[JemmyBubbles]

Dumb question time.

Is it possible to drive while using the pto ?? ?

edit.. I know if you did/could you will be needing crawler gears to not overrun the cable..

[killer_garden_gnome]

you can on some ptos but not the nissan one

[nzdarin]

Virtually everyone doing winch comps in NZ that are using the factory PTO (ie more than half the Patrols) will winch and drive at least some of the time. Theguys that are the most consistant, dead winch a lot more. These things have some much runt tha you only really need to drive to get of a ledge , rock etc. If you are in a bog they appear to work better if you just dead winch, as then the wheels don't dig holes and you end up on the surface, not buried even deeper.
GQ Trol is one of the better exponents of this, and by having good technique (and I don't doubt maintenance) they have a very reliable winch. Be aware that the weakness of PTO is reliability. There's a reason why irtually everyone using PTO in NZ comps run a electric back up.

[turps]

I used to winch and drive when I had my thomas winch. But they used the same PTO output thingy as the factory nissan. And plan on doing the same thing with the full nissan setup.

[GQ TROL]

Yes you can winch and drive with these. As Darin said, depending on the terrain /mud it will often dig you deeper into the mud, so best to dead-pull.

Unless you increase the winch speed or reduce wheel speed, the vehicle will over-run the winch on the high traction surfaces.