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

I personally prefer to get unstuck using the tried and true tech that the ancients used. A long ass rope, a team of 50 barbarian warriors, and a big drum to signal the "heave ho". Works every time.

 

If you knew anything about MA systems, you'd only need 5 of them. Sheesh.

 

Yeah but you'd need 30 miles of rope and a 40 hours to set up your 50:1 reduction.

 

That'll give you time to feed the barbarian horde you've got following you around. They get hungry after all.

 

A demonstration of this in a worst-case-scenario would probably help your case.

 

Don't leave the mall parking lot, I have yet to get stuck, until I leave the parking lot and go hunting

 

My brother's friend, who has a sister who dates a guy that works out in the mud knows a guy who's sisters boyfriend worked with at Jiffy Lube and he got stuck and couldn't get to his winch.

 

THIS

I read the first post and was like dayummm this guy is going to educate us today with a tutorial, maybe a youtube tutorial that he made. Basically call us a bunch of idiots and not only offer an alternative but then thoroughly explain it


Instead, this asshole just shits all over everyone, says we are idiots for not using mechanical advantage which seems like he's an expert on, and then doesn't explain any of it.

 

I and several other people in our 4x4 ran winches on their full-time daily driver trucks in Minnesota. Warn had no problems holding up in the conditions typical of the rust belt. And, i cannot count how many opportunities I had to use a winch. Cannot see having a truck for truck things without a winch.

That said, for most, a snatch strap is adequate. For those who are recovery geeks (like me), a winch is an essential truck tool.

 

I got a guilty story from my oilfield days. Was sampling a rig just outside of Yuba city, where they have those giant ass irrigation ditches. Finished my sample work at 3AM, it was foggy, I was tired, and might have been cruising too fast on the trail trying to find the road. Then for a brief glorious second my headlights saw pavement, followed by air, followed by a hoodfull of freshly plowed sod as I found the main road and went flying across it at 30 mph, and centered my F250 exactly as above.

Enter a two mile hike back to the rig and a humble request for a snatch by the boom lift operator. He only had two stipulations - a) I now owed him a 12 pack, and b) I had to crawl back into the truck and ride it out as he pulled, for the lulz. By the next morning everyone on both shifts knew, and I had to endure the jokes for the rest of that field job.

 

Last time I got stuck while recovering a deer, in the rain, my winch was useless. It was a good 300' from anything and down a hill.


Hauled my tractor over and had a friend pull me out using 150' of big rope.

 

Plot twist:
OP drives a Frontier and can’t afford a properly rated winch.




Btw OP - the times I’ve needed to use my winch I am damn glad I didn’t have to Jerry rig an ATV winch to make this all work.

 

I say this thread gets locked up and thrown into the dumbgeon until @TomHGZ follows through with his initial post and sticks to his word on how using mechanical advantage is all that is needed.

I propose that he gets his Tacoma stuck in a boggy mudhole, or loose sand, with the mud or sand coming up just below the axle hubs (less than 2"). At that point, he must start video recording to show how efficient this system really is. We will all be an audience to him stumbling out of his vehicle, recovering a rusty machete/axe, and stumbling around looking for logs, and setting up pulleys/snatch blocks, and then recovering himself a full truck length from where he was stuck. Bonus points will be given if an ATV winch is used.

Now let's lock this thread up and off the dumbgeon we go.

 

You spelled Ridgeline wrong

 

OP's math also doesn't figure in that your winch's 8K, 12K, etc rating only applies in a certain configuration, such as line only covering the first spool of the drum.

Per the below math from Warn, if you have 4 layers left on the winch pulling to a close obstacle, your 8000lbs winch is only pulling 5200, but your 12,000lbs winch is still at 7,800 which would still give you a good ARR/AGR margin to factor in slope and mud stiction

 

God forbid he gets stuck in the lake beds or the bentonite clay road base out in the west desert of Utah where he would need to dig 4 dead man anchor trenches for that setup, which would only take approximately 5 million years.

I do agree with his sentiment that most people are overwinched, but if you can get more capacity for the same price (Smitty vs Warn) then why not?

 

Not a concern in this case. OP would have every last bit of rope spooled out in order to rig through that many pulleys

Like I said, I really hope he comes back and drops some knowledge on us, but I have my doubts at this point..

 

OP right now.

 

Valid point. Plus a winch extension or two to boot.