That >8,000 lb. winch is a waste of money.

https://www.piercearrowinc.com/collections/winches

 

I agree with the OP that an 8K winch is a waste of money.

Go 10K or go home

 

How is the super winch holding up? I’m looking at getting a winch soon and the little amount I plan to winch makes me second guess buying a warn or spending
$$$ on one

 

I never had one, I ran a cheapo smittybilt and then upgraded to a warn evo 10s. Smittybilt x20 is a good middle ground if quality and price.

 

Oh I gotcha I misinterpreted your post and thought you ran a super winch at one time.
My biggest concern tbh is I don’t want to have to mount the control box in front of the radiator in the area that I’ve seen most ppl mount them. I have my redarc bcdc charger and my secondary battery already mounted in that area for the last 4 years and I don’t really feel like redoing it all as it’s been perfect for my setup. C4 low pro bumper should be here any day now though so I’ve gotta make a choice on winch soon

 

My smitty let's me mount the solenoid box offset to the right/left keeping it low enough to jam in my bumper. I don't know how much tighter a low pro bumper is, but I didn't want to relocate my solenoid either.

 

Do you have any pics of how yours is setup? Also what bumper and which smittybuilt are you running? Any issues?

 

I tried to make it through but got bogged to the axles by page 12.

1) Even 2:1 has loss and therefore isn't quite 2:1. Same story but amplified for 4:1. Someone probably said that but I missed it or didn't get that far.
2) I considered the same thing OP is after and arrived at the following math: 1/2 doing the right thing is 1/4 as useful, 2-4x as complicated, and 3/4 the cost. Doing the right thing is expensive so maybe in due time.
3) Did he ever post the video?

Maybe if I had a winch I could have pulled through the whole thing. At least for the opportunity to tell everyone I have a winch.

 

1) Very true. In fact, the expectation of advanced rigging for both mechanical advantage and redirect, imo, makes it more critical to have a properly rated winch. I've been getting into this lately and I don't think the losses are as large as some "testing" has revealed but it's worth paying attention to.
2) It's always worth it when it turns an emergency into an inconvenience. I've been on both sides of those situations and know firmly where I stand.
3) No and he's not going to.

 

It's an x20 in a victory 4x4 bumper. Its really crowded in there, so I only have some side shots, but mounting the solenoid on the side let's it sit under all the front end bracing. I've only had to use it a couple of times, but 2.5 years of sitting in montana winters and it still works just fine. I also like having the wireless remote too. My only gripe is it's kind of hard engage the free spool, but that's only because I buried it in the front end. I guess if I thought ahead, I could have clocked the free spool so that I could get to it from the front. I imagine with a stealth bumper you can't get to it anyways.

 

The ones I’m really researching at the moment and am most interested in are the smittybuilt X20 Gen 3
Open Road Panther 2
Warn Vr Evo 10s
Super winch 10 synthetic
Rough country 9500 Pro Synthetic

does anybody here have any real life experience with these good or bad and have info on the control box or solenoids being relocatable? Thanks for your input

 

Oh nice! That looks solid and you didn’t have to relocate the control box as far as I can tell by the pics?

 

Yeah, it comes with a bracket that lets it sit over the left side of the drum like the pic shows. I really didn't want to relocate it to the top of the bumper or under the hood like a lot of guys do. That way I didn't have to do custom wiring or brackets or anything.

 

I saw one of them on sale earlier this week and should’ve jumped on it. Now the open road winches have my attention with the reviews, warranty
, spec ratings and price
I just need to know if the control box can be moved. I’ve got plenty of 1/0 marine wite and lugs but would rather not run more wire under the hood

 

What happened to the OP? Which ATV winch did they get?

What’s missing is the fact that the winch is physically not capable to hold 8k force. The frame, cylinders, gears and bolts are not designed for high stresses. Even using dozen pulleys you’ve essentially created a blunderbuss waiting to rain shrapnel. Would be better served using a come along.

 

I keep a 5-ton pull-pal land anchor and a 4-ton Tractel Grip Hoist with a 50’ spool of wire rope in the bed of my truck and can pull in any direction with them. They’re kinda pricey new but mine were CL specials. There aren't trees for anchor points out in the desert, and sometimes more than others I have had to winch off the back, so a front mounted bumper winch would be useless.

 

The winch would be fine at the end of multiple pullies, it would only see whatever fraction of force was needed for the pull.

Fundamentally, the op had a point, it's just that practically you would need a winch with that low an equivalent pull rsting, but with a drum with the capacity for multiple times the length of rope/cable of a heavier rsted winch, and always have to use a 4-8× pull setup, which seversly limits your capabilities. It's a mental exercise in quickly diminishing returns. The tradeoffs clearly don't make it worth it, when the particular type of winch is not readily available, and the result would be something 5x the hassle for a basic extraction.

The best option to try this would be to start with an 8274 winch, where you could replsce the 3-1/2" diameter drum with a piece of 1" round stock (increasing numerical gear ratio, effectively) that would also let you carry hundreds of feet of 1/4" synthetic rope, then get a lower gear ratio gesrset if available from gigglepin or red winch, then see what the smallest 12v atv winch motor with some sort of custom adapter. Or an aftermarket 12v motor rated for a much lower torque output, but much higher duty cycle. Then you still need to rig a 4-8x mechanical advantage syatem for every pull. And you have a very large, very heavy winch with not a lot of aftermarket bumoers/winch mounts that woyld support it.

Or for the same effort, mount an 8274 with the modofied drum, lower gesr ratio gearset, and have a winch that can pull 12+k on a single pull.

I had a (similar) idea with my truck. I cobbled together a warn 9.5xp motor with a warn m8000 gearbox and drum. I can either theoretically pull closer to 12k with it, or at lighter pulls, be drawing significantly fewer amps than the original m8k motor both due to the gear ratio difference.

 

The Warn 8274 was one of of the best winches ever made

 

Indeed. I wish I could mount it on my truck. There's plenty of space to tuck it behind the grille, lol, but it's signifcnalty heavier than winches these days.

I need to finish rebuilding mine.