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questions about suspention preloads and mini-winches

jjlaughner

jjlaughner

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Was over at the UROC at the Badlands this past weekend and noticed several rigs running smaller winches front and or rear sttached to the axles. When going up hill they pulled the front winch in abit to lower the nose, and vice versa, going down hill pull the rear in a bit.

I'm planning on running mostly trails and there may be some hill climbs which I may need to see over the ridge at the top. I have 52" springs up front and 56" springs in the rear. Would it be worth getting a couple small winches and attaching to my new crossmembers to help in these situations? I'm also thinking they would be nice to unhook the winch from the axle and hooking it to the trailer to 'help' (meaning its not the only restraint system); help hold the truck down to the trailer and reduce bouncing when using axle shaft tie downs.

I was nosing around ebay and spotted a couple smaller 1500lb winches like the warn 1.5ti for about $200
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I'm considering it, is this maybe something that with leaf springs would be silly and basiclaly useless and wasting about $400 on mini winches? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/thinking.gif /forums/images/graemlins/ears.gif
 
I would think that setup would only be practical in competition rigs. Don't see a need for that in a trail rig /forums/images/graemlins/dunno.gif Have you had problems that would warrant a setup like that? You should be able to do most of what you want without winches compressing your suspension /forums/images/graemlins/doah.gif
 
when I build a buggy I will run a front winch to compress suspension. It makes a lot of sense really. Can act as simply a limiting strap to prevent suspension unloading(in a hill climb that could be disastrous). Or can really load the suspension for even better effects in the same situation. I see no reason a trail rig shouldn't run it. I don't plan on doing it to the K5 simply because I don't feel like fabbing up the mounting crap.
 
yeah I like the idea of limiting the suspension on hill climbs, keep things from bouncing. I also like the idea of pulling the nose down going up steep grades and the rear in coming down... the trailer thing was a maybe if Idea.


I have no experience with them or my rig in any of the situations. I'm building the crossmembers for the engine and rear shock setups and figured why there no body of the frame now would be a good time to fab up the mounting points and make some beefy crossmembers to support the weight of preload. /forums/images/graemlins/deal.gif
It looked to really help some of the buggys in the rock crawling, esp coming down grades and I follewed one group around that had it and they made the hill climbs and large decents look like a cake walk!
 
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I'm also thinking they would be nice to unhook the winch from the axle and hooking it to the trailer to 'help' (meaning its not the only restraint system); help hold the truck down to the trailer and reduce bouncing when using axle shaft tie downs.


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It's illegal. A winch line is only meant for loading. It's not meant for securing a vehicle.
 
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I'm also thinking they would be nice to unhook the winch from the axle and hooking it to the trailer to 'help' (meaning its not the only restraint system); help hold the truck down to the trailer and reduce bouncing when using axle shaft tie downs.


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It's illegal. A winch line is only meant for loading. It's not meant for securing a vehicle.

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Gee when I drove a roll off truck and trailer for a scrap metal company the winches on the truck and trailer were the only thing holding the drop boxes on. The CHP in the scales never said a thing about it. Look at any roll off truck hauling stuff to the dump. One big winch cable holds the box against the stop blocks that's it.
 
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I'm also thinking they would be nice to unhook the winch from the axle and hooking it to the trailer to 'help' (meaning its not the only restraint system); help hold the truck down to the trailer and reduce bouncing when using axle shaft tie downs.


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It's illegal. A winch line is only meant for loading. It's not meant for securing a vehicle.

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I added some emphasis in there to make it easier for you to read.

I don't believe in tying a vehicle down using solely the axle tubes. Car haulers don't do it, classic car movers don't do it, and repos don't do it.

I'd use the winches to compress the suspension and then use chain binders and chains to the frame in a cross pattern. It'd make loading a lot quicker because you wouldn't have to choke the chain several times in order to get the binder tight enough with soft suspension.

But anyway, he said "help".
 
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I'm also thinking they would be nice to unhook the winch from the axle and hooking it to the trailer to 'help' (meaning its not the only restraint system); help hold the truck down to the trailer and reduce bouncing when using axle shaft tie downs.


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It's illegal. A winch line is only meant for loading. It's not meant for securing a vehicle.

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I added some emphasis in there to make it easier for you to read.

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/forums/images/graemlins/waytogo.gif
Axle strap tie downs is what I meant... not axle shaft.
/forums/images/graemlins/doah.gif
 
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I'm also thinking they would be nice to unhook the winch from the axle and hooking it to the trailer to 'help' (meaning its not the only restraint system); help hold the truck down to the trailer and reduce bouncing when using axle shaft tie downs.


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It's illegal. A winch line is only meant for loading. It's not meant for securing a vehicle.

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If you're simply using it to pull the suspension down I don't see the problem. If the vehicle is chained to the axle tubes and all you do is pull the suspension down with the bumpstops the vehicle isn't going anywhere.
 
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I would think that setup would only be practical in competition rigs. Don't see a need for that in a trail rig /forums/images/graemlins/dunno.gif Have you had problems that would warrant a setup like that? You should be able to do most of what you want without winches compressing your suspension /forums/images/graemlins/doah.gif

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And miss a photo opportunity like this /forums/images/graemlins/woot.gif /forums/images/graemlins/woot.gif
 
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