Hydraulic Winch Setup

I have built several hydraulic soil samplers. The implementation is actually fairly simple. It's the fabrication that's hard. Plus, once it's working, it's only a matter of time until a line goes. Funny story, about a year ago a customer of mine built a small hydralic power unit and attached it to a winch the could go into a truck receiver. It was neat, but extremely bulky for what it did. Still, good luck, this would be one of those neat but not that useful projects that makes you proud to finish it because you can.

 

Be very careful with a pump like that. DO NOT skimp on a good quality over pressure bypass valve. That pump is made for around 8 HP at 3600 RPM. Without a good bypass, you could easily kill yourself when it explodes.

In order to hook something like that up, you *will* need to add a second belt on to the front of your engine. Preferably, you will bolt another pulley directly onto the crankshaft, and this pulley will need to have a circumference of about 3600/(target engine speed) times the circumference of the pulley on the hydraulic pump in order to rotate the pump at the required speed while the engine is spinning at whatever speed you decide on.

Also note that the "fast" mode isn't really all that fast. In a log splitter application, MOST logs will split while on the fast gear. It will fall down to the slow gear when you split something *really* hard, or do something crazy like cutting against the grain. So don't think of it like a garage floor jack that lifts from the bottom to a car's frame on the first stroke, followed by very small motion on the rest.

Frankly, you would probably be better off with a single speed pump, it isn't like you have a shortage of horsepower driving it. 2-stage hydraulic wood splitter pumps are for small 8 hp engines..

Compared to an electric winch, I do see problems with this idea;
1) whether the idle control will be able to react far enough or quickly enough to deal with that kind of load.
2) that winching should be combination of winch *and* the vehicle's drive. You are going to have to vary the engine speed by working the throttle while simultaneously, the hydraulic winch will require a *constant* engine speed.


Personally, if I was dead set on going the route of a hydraulic winch, I'd go electric/hydraulic hybrid. The advantage is that it solves BOTH of the problems I mentioned. But of course, the rational argument against that is that the hydraulic component is technically redundant, since you are converting from a rotating power to flowing, and back to rotating, which means an ultimate loss of efficiency.

Frankly, while it is a cool idea, you aren't going to achieve an improvement in utility from it. You aren't going to end up with a stronger winch, and you aren't going to make it run longer than you could achieve better by adding on either an additional electric generator/alternator, a bigger one, and/or an additional battery. You are just going to frustrate yourself with the relationship between the varying throttle speed and how the pump works.

If you just like the idea of having something hydraulic on your truck, consider buying/making a snow plow. The reason why hydraulics are used on snow plows is because all of the required movements are linear extensions of fixed short distances. Extend left cylinder to angle right, extend right cylinder to angle left, extend lift cylinder to lift.

 

yea, this is one of the major hurdles that may ultimately kill this idea. If I was wanting some wheel spin while winching I'd have to be careful to not grenade the pump, though some pumps are good to 5000 rpm, it would depend on my pulley ratio as to what the engine/pump relationship would be. The pump would most likely be spinning faster than the engine.

I did give up on the idea of a two stage pump, mainly for simplicity.

As for the idle situation, I estimated the engine to have about 10-15 hp at idle (650 rpm) based on the few dyno sheets Tooter had posted awhile back. Theoretically I would be able to winch with all the speed and power I'd need from idle (depending on pump choice), but I thought maybe I could wire up a high idle circuit. I've heard trucks with inverters have one that I may be able to copy.

I dunno, I think a hydraulic winch would be awesome and I know I could make it work, I just don't know if I have the money to play with... A winch of any kind is not a huge priority for me right now.

Like I said before though, if all I get out of this is a better understanding of hydraulic systems, it's still a win in my book!

 

I have a htdraulic Milemarker 12000 on a Dodge Cummins 4x4 and it works beautifully with the engine idleing. Has pulled the truck many times out of the mud. It has the factory power steering pump and cooler, never a problem. The Milemarker site shows a listing for Toyota, so give them a call and get their opinion of your application.

 

What's your budget? That's something that you're going to have to identify before you really delve into this project. Coming from a strong background in marine hydraulic/fluid power systems (I captain a trawl vessel in Alaska); take your anticipated cost and double it.



Hydraulics are great - when they're being used in the correct application. As @tgear.shead stated; along with the complexity of running a hydraulic system - you very well run the risk of serious injury as well. I've seen pumps/motors and hoses go rat shit on a 150 GPM system at 1800 PSI nominal operational pressure; it's not fun. High pressure fluid injection injuries suck - especially if you get one when you're using your winch in a self-recovery situation miles from the nearest road.

Don't get me wrong, hydraulics are incredible:

25,000 Lb. Pullmaster...

I just don't see the practical application for this instance.

If you want to learn about hydraulics; buy yourself a copy of this:

$105 Mobile Hydraulics Manual

http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Hydrau...d=1448235758&sr=1-2&keywords=eaton+hydraulics

It's an excellent reference.

That being said, best of luck to you! If you make it happen, it will definitely be unique!

 

I use a hydraulic winch every day in my tow truck and I'm considering winches for my tacoma. I love the ability to winch for as long I need without worrying about the batteries or overheating the winch motor, and the precision/line speed control is pretty banger. However that's all very heavy... and expensive... and leaks... and doesn't like extreme cold or inclines much less being upside down. The incline thing could be fixed with a different reservoir obviously but I think I would rather invest that weight penalty into another battery that can be used to power other things and buy two electric winches for not much more than one hydraulic winch costs. Because after all, who doesn't want a winch on both ends of the truck? I've had to leave a vehicle in the woods until sunrise, waiting for the slush to freeze so we could drive out. Two winches would have been more helpful than anything regardless of what drives them. Obviously your weight and price penalty goes up with more bumpers and winches. Admittedly, I probably would get more use out of two winches than most folks due to my occupation, so I'm a little biased there, but that's one tow truck guys perspective... in a perfect world anyway.

 

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Recently upgraded to dual electrics... worth it.