Best winching story?

[pismorat]

So what is your best winching story? Yesterday I got a call that a guy rented a skid steer and flopped it on its side 50' down a steep slope in his back yard. I went to check it out and it was bad. With my K10, I had to drive through his front yard, through a fence, around his pool equipment, then align myself on the soft dirt right next to his pool. I strapped the top of the bucket support with my strap, then ran the cable down from my Warn 9.5ti. Somehow I was able to right it while pulling it over center up the hill! Don't have a snatch block yet, so I was worried I didn't have the capacity. The thing even fired back up and drove out, not a bad adventure for a Saturday!!

 

[Bowtie85]

Sounds like fun.

Last time we went wheeling, I lost my clutch. We had 4 broken trucks hooked together including mine. During the last mud hole we 2 of us came unhooked. After we got the guy ahead of me out. I had to winch from willow bush to willow bush for about 200 feet with winch only. Than Once I got close enough to my buddy, we went winch to winch for another 150 feet.

 

[blazinzuk]

Stuck in a mudhole, 7 anchor trucks, all of which had to pull backwards and dig down with their tires till they were stuck. 1 8274 and 4 snatchblocks. Yah read em 4 snatch blocks had almost every bit of cable on that 8274 spooled out but I was only 30 ft away ( give or take). Even that speed demon of a winch pulls slow with 4 snatch blocks

South Dakota the waterfall on the Hal Johns trail. My winch pulling me up. Another winch pulling me sideways as I was going up on the front, another winch stabilizing the truck to prevent me from going over, and another winch pulling my back end up the hill to make sure it wouldn't get stuck in a hole.

Another mud hole. Only truck with a winch was a zuk. 9000 pounder. Strapped the zuk to a tree with 3 tree savers (it was a large tree) attached back of zuk to the anchor, attached winch cable to the stuck truck. At one point you could go over to the zuk and one guy could balance it so all the wheels were off the ground. Took a while but we pulled the truck out.

 

[Fordum]

Man, I probably have dozens of winch stories. Some I'd rather not post, since folks here most likely already think I exaggerate a little, or a lot.
Sad part is, its all true......

This is one of the wilder ones. I posted it here a couple of years ago, but can't find that post now or I would just post a link.

I found where I had copy and pasted it, and recopied it for here.
And, yes, it is true. Not real proud of it, but its just like it happened.........


<Back in my wilder days, I had a set of hooks on the front and back of the frame on both sides. If I had to hook to a tree or another truck with the back end trailer hitch, I would run a pair of log chains with binders from the front to the back of the frame to prevent stretching or breaking the frame. I had to help a friend weld his back together one time, so I took precautions.
Since my winch ran direct shaft drive off the transfer case PTO, it would pull until something broke. And since I sometimes used heavy cable, I was worried it might be me.

I did not bother with using the chains with normal stuff, 3/4 Ton trucks, small farm tractors, small flatbeds, etc. only for the big pulls.
Then, one day I learned another lesson about anchoring the back end. The hard way, of course. Is there any other way to learn?

A friend had backed a small dump truck off the road to turn it around and it started bogging down. He was smart enough to not sink it, and called me.
The other side of the road had a wide shallow ditch, about 2 feet deep max. Hard bottom. I backed up into the ditch and hooked a chain from a tree to my hitch. Started pulling. My truck tires came off the ground, and the truck promptly spun upside down.
You don't really know how much stuff you have in your truck until you are laying on the headliner with all of it piled up around you.

Of course, being a carb. truck, it promptly quit. Also being a worm drive winch with a brake, it locked when the power quit. I climbed out the window, and my friend and I were able to spin it right side up and wedge it that way with a tree limb. Then we opened the hood and washed off the battery acid. ( Optimas from now on )

Then we sat around laughing at each other's expression until enough of the oil had drained back down into the crankcase that we figured it was safe to crank. Smoked a bit, but ran ok.

Redid the back anchor so I was parked on a high point instead of a dip, and pulled him out.

I don't bother with the frame chains anymore, although I do use a back anchor from time to time. My new PTO winch is hydraulic running off the transfer case. I have the pressure bypass set so that it will almost break a 3/8 steel core cable with a full spool. Which means that it will break it with a wrap or so off the spool.
The frame should handle that. I don't fool with a snatch block. My winch will pull out anything I need to be trying to pull out single line.
If it breaks a 3/8 steel cable, I consider it out of my class and go looking for a skidder or a D6.
Guess I have mellowed. Used to be, I would go looking for a bigger cable.

 

[max 02]

Fordum you know what I would have loved to see video of that.

Awesome story's you tell.

 

[onetonbb74]

just remember if your rear bumper is anchored to a tree during a winch pull, make sure you unhook from said tree when your done...If not, you might have a windshield to replace and a headache in the am....

 

[Fordum]

Fordum you know what I would have loved to see video of that.

Awesome story's you tell.

I would love to have a video of that.

I probably tell it a little better than I type it.
I leave out the part where I am laying on the inside roof of the cab covered in every loose piece of trash in the truck, wondering what in the heck happened.
It was like my brain shorted out. When something like that happens, you just don't have a reference to go by.
Everything was in the wrong place, my head and neck were hurting, and the ground was where the sky should be out the windshield.

If you are driving, and skid out and turn over, you see it coming, and realize that you are upside down.
But I was sitting in a stationary truck chained to a tree, with no warning at all.
One second I am watching the dump truck to see if its going to come out, and the next second the whole world was crazy.

I'm glad to see that Zuk partially confirms my story. In his case, I suspect the rear anchor in that case was such that it canceled out the tendency to spin.

Mine was a single chain or cable, don't remember which at this late date.

And the cab stuff was just a warmup. Then we had to put all the stuff back in the bed, and I don't even want to remember the first time I opened the tool box........

 

[max 02]

Now I`m just laughing and got a smile on my face thinking about you rolling over like that... I can imagine that happened so quick.

Glad you didn`t get hurt.

 

[blazinzuk]

I would love to have a video of that.

I probably tell it a little better than I type it.
I leave out the part where I am laying on the inside roof of the cab covered in every loose piece of trash in the truck, wondering what in the heck happened.
It was like my brain shorted out. When something like that happens, you just don't have a reference to go by.
Everything was in the wrong place, my head and neck were hurting, and the ground was where the sky should be out the windshield.

If you are driving, and skid out and turn over, you see it coming, and realize that you are upside down.
But I was sitting in a stationary truck chained to a tree, with no warning at all.
One second I am watching the dump truck to see if its going to come out, and the next second the whole world was crazy.

I'm glad to see that Zuk partially confirms my story. In his case, I suspect the rear anchor in that case was such that it canceled out the tendency to spin.

Mine was a single chain or cable, don't remember which at this late date.

And the cab stuff was just a warmup. Then we had to put all the stuff back in the bed, and I don't even want to remember the first time I opened the tool box........

shoot J I will go further than that you spark memories in my brain at least on this point.

Had a truck tied off to a tree and another truck stuck in mud coming downhill None of us could get to him and he was buried. We decided the slow pull of a winch would be the best. So truck tied off to a tree, winch cable going up hill, started winching, none of looking at the winch truck, guy whose truck it was, was outside with the remote control and then BAM winch truck is sitting on its side. Its like it just jumped on its side or something. Soon as he let off the winch cable it went back to its wheels We had to take a 15 minute break we were all laughing so hard. No damage done to the truck, we tied it off a different way and no problems at all. Only took about 20 feet to get the truck out of his stuck.

So yah a winch is a powerful force

 

[Fordum]

Actually you folks have already beat me. I don't have a single winch story that involves more than one winch.
I always had enough winch to do the job, and the few times I needed to stop a sideways motion while pulling someone out, I always managed to either connect the cable in an unusual place or chain the vehicle off at an angle to swing it back where I wanted.

Like using a spring line to get a boat off a dock in a high wind.

I did get involved in one, two winch pull, but the other winch was an electric and had run out of battery while pulling another truck out.

We could not get enough slack to unhook him, so I just pulled both of them out at the same time.

 

[blazinzuk]

I do have a pic to prove that one too. It was hard to get the angles right. And we hadn't attached the winch to the back of the truck.

I had to go straight up here pretty much, there was a big hole for me to fall in.

So in this pic my winch is hooked to the yellow Jeep you can hardly see, the brown Jeep has a winch on me. The yellow Jeep has a winch hooked to another guy further up so he wouldn't move sideways under the pull. He was also had his winch hooked up to a large tree. The winchline you can see in the bottom pic is yet another Jeep keeping me from flopping over on the face of the rock which would have made winching alot harder. About 5 minutes after we realized this setup wouldn't work we added a winch on the rear of the truck to pull that back end over.

 

[blazinzuk]

One more than I will stop.

Buddy rolled his truck down a mountain, I kid you not a mountain, he lived, came out with a punctured lung, 5 broken ribs a broken arm and alot of scrapes and bruises.

Truck sitting at the bottom of a deep valley and we didn't know how to get it out. Its a big fine if you leave the truck there and he was already going to have major medical bills.

So straight down the hill they send me in my zuk. Lightest truck there, I had a 6k winch on it. Driving straight down the hill scared the crap outta me. So I got a ways down there, we stretched out my winch cable to the truck. Hooked it up. Next down was a Jeep with another winch CJ5 he got to a hundred or so feet up me and hooked me up to his winch. He had an 8k lb warn, then on up to an early bronco with a 10k lb winch. Finally we had a 4x4 wrecker my buddy owned up there with his 15k lb winch Ramsey I think it was. His was a hydraulic all the rest were electrics.

I started winching the truck up, got it close to me than the next guy winched us both up. Then the next guy winched us both up. He started having a hard time so after he pulled us up a bit, we double lined his winch.

Now realize I am at the bottom of a 600 ft or so hill side that is steep, no way you are driving up it. Driving down was scary enough and I am looking down hill, with a rolled truck my buddy nearly died in hooked to me.

Got the bronco double lined up and started pulling, Well he coudn't pull far so the wrecker started pulling the whole line up the hill. We had spent all morning achoring him with several long spikes drove into the ground.

Bronco gets to the top of the hill, unhook him and run the wrecker line down to the jeep, jeep gets up and then it was finally my turn to get dragged up the hill, by this time we had unhooked my winch and chained me to the wrecked toyota. Finally got me to the top of the hill but the wreck wasn't up far enough yet so down the other side of the hill we backed the bronco. on a winch line because it was too steep to drive down. He winched me over to the road. Where I held my brakes, cause his winch brake and me were the only tow things keeping him from backing down into another 600 ft deep draw.

Finally got the wreck up on the road and the wrecker turned around to winch the bronco up.

All rigs on top of the hill the wreck chained to the wrecker and bronco ( bronco pulling, wrecker acting as brakes) to the trailer.

Total time spent getting that wreck out and all of his parts picked up. 18 hours.

BLM guys were so impressed with our recovery skills they asked us to go up and recover a couple more wrecks. None of them nearly as bad as the first.

They paid us for each one and we gave all the money to our buddy to help with hospital bills

 

[76zimmer]

check this, Heading to BB11, drove 14 hours to get to Kerts place, one thing we had to do was mount up the winch on the front bumper...dug the winch out of the back of the truck, set it on the bumper, try to figure where to mount the control box and looking, looking...forgot to bring the control box. Put the winch in the back of the truck again.

 

[Fordum]

Man, I thought it was scary when I respooled the winch on my Jeep with 1/4 inch stuff and let a radar unit down from a 150 foot tower.

Now that you are through with that job, I can let you in a a dirty little secret that winch makers don't mention.
The dog clutches on the free spool part of a winch will sometimes let go in a long pull under a light load.
Especially if its going in reverse and the winch does not have a positive lock on the clutch.

Most winches have a lock on the clutch that locks it both engaged or disengaged. But often its out of adjustment and does not lock. Particularly if there is a build up of mud or crud on the side of the spool.

The one on my truck locks great engaged, but when I disengage it, I have to snatch it a couple of times to get the handle to move far enough for it to lock.
The one on my old Jeep would not lock engaged, so when I was lowering the unit, I jammed a large stick under the handle so it could not move down.
Not only was I lowering a 500 lb expensive radar unit, but my friend was coming down with it, and rode it from time to time to clear out wires or things that might hang it up.

It sounds to me like you could have used a modified version of a winch I read about back when I was about 15.
The details are sketchy this many years gone, and it was just a two page article. But this winch had supposedly 1/2 mile of cable on it!

Very big spool, small cable. 1/4 inch or so.
Powered by a 12 volt starter motor.
As I remember, these guys hunted big horn sheep. From time to time they would shoot one, but be almost unable to get him.
So they built this rig. It had a heavy brake on the spool, and a clamp for the cable. Plus they had lots of blocks with various types of mounts.
They would drive this special vehicle as close as they could, and then start climbing down with the cable.
Placing pulley blocks on any rock that it had to go over.

When they got to the sheep, they would hook him up. The guy at the truck would lock the spool and drive forward slowly as far as he could.

Then, he would clamp the cable off, and back the truck up winding up the cable as he went.
Then unclamp the cable, lock the spool, and drive forward again.

The truck did all the pulling, the starter motor was just to wind up the cable.
The other hunters would follow the sheep up picking up the blocks as they went. Or maybe they left them hooked to the cable.
Its been a long time since I read that.

I wonder if there is anything online about that. Probably not. I'll play around with some searches anyway......