Hydraulic Winches

With the emphasis being mainly on electric winches, how many use hydraulic winches? although more expensive to initially purchase and more involved to install, they are a much better option for those regularly off roading, they are faster than electric winches, more reliable, and have no issues with stopping when the motors overheat. Having this constant pull is a boon for heavier winching and i would not swap my hydraulic winch for an electric winch now, but still keep an electric as a spare.

What do you do if engine broke while in the mud, or ditch

It is an unlikely scenario as i do not have a LR, but if we turn it around how much winching time have you got if your engine breaks down and your battery goes flat.

All systems have pro's and con's, really it becomes acedemic from that perspective.

Flat Battery or broken engine? I guess there is always that back up...the old manual winch. Get stuck and have to use one of these, and you make damned sure you don't get stuck too often

Had some serious hand winching to do when a travelling companions clutch pressure plate decided to self destruct. We did have to be on the wrong side of the dune, didn't we? and although he had an electric winch & dual batteries, the systen decided to choose this point to flatten both batteries.

We got the defender over the dune...took 5 hrs, and then he was towed out to Alice Srpings...a total of over 800km :shock:



To give you an idea of what we were getting across

Some great seenery ther, maybe one day.
Don't do that sort or overland travel yet, mainly greenlanes some off road runs at LR shows, do have recovery points and cary large tow rope and rated shackels, but not had money to buy a winch, so relie on outhers to give me a tow, so far not needed a winch pull, but am I beying selfish in not haveing a winch, and relie on outhers. ?

Shame it wasn't a Series with a crank handle Vixen, you could have made it into an epic!

That film was on a few nights ago, still worth a view every 2 years or so for that scene.

I designed and built my own hydraulic winch and it has got its own manual cranking handle installed on the gearbox.

Assassin wrote:

I designed and built my own hydraulic winch and it has got its own manual cranking handle installed on the gearbox.

Good stuff, definitely send you in first!

When you say "that scene" Yoda are you referring to the 'ambulance on the dune' or the scene that gets Land Rover anoraks sorry, enthusiasts the world over all excited? You know the one, where Anthony Quale (the German spy) gets hauled off in the back of the truck and as he looks backwards towards the buildings what is sitting there clear as mud? A Series One 80". Quite some feat for a WWII setting 'cause the first production Land Rover didn't appear until 1948. Opps!

roamingman wrote:

That film was on a few nights ago, still worth a view every 2 years or so for that scene.

Nah! I know which scene you're talking about. It was all going so well until the token frail girlie got in on the act. WOMEN!!!

Fine Tom i will go first, but if the winch fails you can crank it, how's that.

Tom Mc wrote:

roamingman wrote:

That film was on a few nights ago, still worth a view every 2 years or so for that scene.

Nah! I know which scene you're talking about. It was all going so well until the token frail girlie got in on the act. WOMEN!!!

Well I know I can handcrank a V8 Landie, but that truck has a 5 on it's BWD, so it's a good deal bigger than a landie Don't know that I'd manage that .....maybe when I was her ^ age