winch accessories

[darinz]

All you really need is a few 3.25t (min) green shackles. A cable dampner for every pulley block plus one for the rope. An anchor and an 20ish meter extension. Don't forget a tree protector for every hook and pulley block. (I set up each cable dampner with a pulley block, shackle and tree trunk protector)

or

you can carry every peice needed to man and hardy ever use it. If you travel with other trucks then you can share the extra gear to get each other out. If you travel alone then you'll need so much gear you'll always get stuck because of the weight of the gear you carry. Catch 22 really.

But one thing you must carry is the knowledge of how to use the gear safely. I've seen way too many muppets with all the gear who don't know how to winch safely so it is all useless.

When competing I've never had to use more than about 70meters of rope and one pulley block. And I've never DNFed because of lack of gear. (breaking stuff is another story)

[bobrocket]

Some stuff that may or may not be handy to know,

Bow Shackles can have yellow, green or blue pins, these tell you the location of manufacturer but industry says they must all have a minimum safety factor of 5:1, the main difference is in the general finish of the shackle and a few bucks, the Chinese shackles are just as good as any other and a bit cheaper due to lower import tariffs.
#pins should never be swapped even between the same colors

Slings - A good sling will be tagged and will show the rating in different configurations, date of manufacture....etc, a sling has a safety factor of 7:1,
If you buy a sling with no tag, ie a 8000kg orange tree trunk protector, is that when it breaks or is that its safe working load?

Most winch accessories are sourced or copied from the rigging environment where it is designed as strong but cheap and disposable, pulleys, shackles, wire, rope, hooks, extensions............if its bent, stretched, broken, split, deformed, whatever, it should be thrown away

it is all rated and regulated except where it is called an accessory, ie 4X4, then it becomes classed as recreational not industrial and all the safety factors and ID requirements go out the window.

Just some food for thought,

[flyingbrick]

I carry two ammo tins with two 4.5T shackles, 1x pulley block, 1x tree protector in each of them. Also have two shackles fitted to rear of truck. 30 mtr winch extension strap. heavy duty tirfor (used by Oz army to pull out unimogs) with 30 mtrs of wire rope. snig chain with hooks both ends. And that's just for winching, don't even ask about ropes, maxtrac, digging tools etc, tec.
At times it can all be in use.
Al

How do you find the maxtrac? Really as good as all of the hype that surrounds them?