Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 13:19:40 -0500
Reply-To: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Subject: Winching, etc.
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19981122145007.00ba7160@po-2.openmarket.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I don't know how much into winching you are. I have winched my van from
difficult spots a total of about 50 times and my friend's Toyota Landcruiser
another 25 times.
I find that in 20% of the stucks the front bumper is buried half way down into
mud, so that you cannot obtain access to the spare tire area in that
eventuality. In another 20% of the cases, access to the spare tire area is
difficult for other reasons, such as water or big rocks stuck up under there.
So I estimate that a spare tire mounted winch would be ineffective 40% of the
time--too high an ineffective rate for me to advise it.
8000 lb winch makes much, much more sense that my capacity, which is 4,000 lbs,
which I am obligated therefore to double back or triple back the wire to get
the lbs. rating back up.
There is a possibility that Ramsey winches are preferable to Warn because they
may use half the amps to do the same work. The issue is plenatory gear vs. worm
gear. I have a Warn winch and am happy with it, but I think you may want to
look at this issue before deciding.
Be very cautious about the rear 2" hitch. You do not want the rear hitch to
harm your departure angle. I had Dennis Haynes fabricate a special rear hitch
for me that was less onerous from this aspect than his normal hitches.
You will find that it is of low practicality to wind the wire onto a winch
mounted in the spare tire area. You need to have a good access to your winch
drum.
Moving the winch front and rear is a good thing and I employ this method. I use
a chain to link it to the vehicle, which is advantageous in that it allows one
to angle the winch in the direction of the tree to which one is winching, by
means of shortening or lengthening that chain. In some respects, this setup is
superior to using a hitch receiver because otherwise the wire tends to bundle
up on one side of the drum, and it is a real pain if you are not winching
directly forward, which you 70% of the time are not.
For the forgoing reasons, I would advise you fabricate a platform on your new
spare tire carriers to hold the winch and then put a weather bonnet on the
winch and then get a lock for it. When you need it, you bring it down, attach
it to the vehicle with chains and winch to your hearts content.
Winching tends to be a drag, by the way, and I have a habit of accelerating
rapidly beer consumption upon learning that I have to winch, which some will
scoul at because I have control of a vehicle, but which tends to mitigate the
pain of the whole affair, and is, after all, conducted in an environment of
less than 5mph driving, and no public roads.
This can have consequences. I recall once being unable to stand once upon a
road of glare ice which extended some 1/4 mile toward the town of Bennington
Vermont from a high spot at Sucker Pond. We had to hook the vehicle to a tree
an then push it around like a pendilum on the cable until it was backing down
the ice, and then it took some five hours to carefully winch backwards down
that hill, with us all the time holding on the door handles in order to keep
standing on that ice.
Upon reading the bottom, and after such prolonged punishment of winching and
such prolonged attempts to mitigate the horror of the whole affair being also
very cold out, we were obligated to spend the night as it was inadvisable to
continue driving as we were.
I advise you alternatively to bolt your winch up on top of your front bumper
area, being able to unbolt it and shift it to the rear in case of need.
At 07:57 AM 11/23/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
> Dear Derek,
>
> I am considering the following for my trip:
>
> - Two rear-mounted swing-out tire carriers (for a total of 6 tires).
> - Rear 2" hitch
> - No tire under the front...
> - ...and in its place, a WARN 8000 winch (hidden from view).
>
> Do you think the winch will fit up inside of where the old tire went?
> Any problems with the above rig, other than wiring it remotely?
>
> NOTE: I really don't want to store the winch inside (as in your setup) as all
> the inside room is spoken for. Another possibility: mount it to a portable
> platform which connects to the rear 2" hitch and "move" it to a front 2"
> hitch when necessary?
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Michael J. Sullivan
> Director of Catalog Design
> Open Market, Inc.
>
> *********************************************
> phone: 781.359.7624
> work: <http://www.openmarket.com>http://www.openmarket.com
> scan tips:
<http://www.hsdesign.com/scanning>http://www.hsdesign.com/scanning
> vanagon: <http://www.hsdesign.com/vanagon>http://www.hsdesign.com/vanagon
> *********************************************
_______________________________________________
Derek Drew New York, NY & Washington DC
ConsumerSearch
drew@interport.net
212-580-6486, 202-966-7907 (Work)
212-580-4459; 202-966-0938 (Home)
(cell: 917-848-6425)
