Building a Winch out of a Starter Motor

nzhunter · Post by **nzhunter** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 8:07 pm

Hello,
I've had a thought of how to build a winch out of starter motor and manual boat winch and since I'm a tight arse student I cant afford to buy one.
I was thinking of getting a starter motor out of a truck or some sort of diesel. Then put the starter on to the boat winch. This will hopefully gear it down a bit and give it some good pulling power. I was thinking of having it portable so it doesnt look all gammy on the front of my surf

Any thoughts on this?

Could this Burn the starter motor out?

Anyone tryed it?

Any thoughts would be awesome

Cheers,
DAN

safari_mulisha · Post by **safari_mulisha** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 8:24 pm

nissan laurel RD28 diesel starter motors

2KW yeah grunty

callum007 · Post by **callum007** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:44 pm

starter arent designed to run 100% duty cycle

matwelli · Post by **matwelli** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:52 pm

I second what callum said, starters are only designed for short runs and are relatively inefficient, the motor will overheat very quickly.

A better choice my be to find a cheap DC motor from a forklift or similar.

Clint · Post by **Clint** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 3:48 pm

Have a look at the Warn/superwinch websites, they list the gear ratios - usually around 200:1 so yer 5:1 boat winch may struggle a wee bit, but only for the 2 minutes it'll take to burn out the starter motor

Best cheap winch is a tirfor & a pulley block. There are some solid looking tirfors around now at pretty sharp prices.

Cheaper again is a high lift jack with some chain & a few shackles.

If you still want cheaper get an old wire strainer with a long bit of chain.

Cheers
Clint

mudchuka · Post by **mudchuka** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:36 pm

go to steel and tube and buy a block and tackle 1.5 tonne is all you need , cheap as chips ,dont take up much room and pull like a school boy.
have seen a 1 tonner pull out a lwb land cruiser stuck to the tail gate!! we couldnt snatch him out and broke a 8tonne bungy, he came back with the block and tackle and it was piece of piss.

callum007 · Post by **callum007** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:47 pm

buy 3.5 ton black rat turfur at steel and tube.. cost me about $300..
lighter to carry than my winch. more useful.

great for excercise

gomulletgo · Post by **gomulletgo** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:15 pm

Haha, well I've tried the wire strainer (short chain). a bit of a work out it was, in all honesty it was rather dangerous and did'nt do the job (sat in the river for 3 hours waiting for a mate to come pull me out with his landcruiser)

I have also tried the chain block, I found out the hard way that chain blocks are not designed to do a horizontal pulls (only vertical). shagged my chain block, vehicle was still stuck.

I need a winch for my new (to me anyway, 84 surf) and I don't like the idea of a pto or electric winch etc. I like the way you can pull in any direction with a hand winch, but I don't particularly like the idea of a tirfor, (apparantly hard work, gotta thread the steel cable through entire winch, even for short pulls, uses steel cable, so if something breaks your standing right there, waiting to be cut in half.)

So I have been designing my own winch, very secret squirrel. Trouble is I don't have all the tools to make it.

If it's not perfect, make your own one

that's the plan anyway.

MULLET

Sadam_Husain · Post by **Sadam_Husain** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:21 pm

Cant go wrong with the tirfor

... and the exercise will make you think twice before getting stuck next time

rokhound · Post by **rokhound** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:21 pm

gomulletgo wrote:Haha, well I've tried the wire strainer (short chain). a bit of a work out it was, in all honesty it was rather dangerous and did'nt do the job (sat in the river for 3 hours waiting for a mate to come pull me out with his landcruiser)

I have also tried the chain block, I found out the hard way that chain blocks are not designed to do a horizontal pulls (only vertical). shagged my chain block, vehicle was still stuck.

I need a winch for my new (to me anyway, 84 surf) and I don't like the idea of a pto or electric winch etc. I like the way you can pull in any direction with a hand winch, but I don't particularly like the idea of a tirfor, (apparantly hard work, gotta thread the steel cable through entire winch, even for short pulls, uses steel cable, so if something breaks your standing right there, waiting to be cut in half.)

So I have been designing my own winch, very secret squirrel. Trouble is I don't have all the tools to make it.

If it's not perfect, make your own one

that's the plan anyway.

MULLET

Just turn your Hilift into a hand winch using some chain etc.

wjw · Post by **wjw** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:35 pm

Sadam_Husain wrote:Cant go wrong with the tirfor

... and the exercise will make you think twice before getting stuck next time

Tirfors are great

gomulletgo · Post by **gomulletgo** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:02 pm

You guys got typing in a hurry, hmmm or maybe I went to sleep.

Just turn your Hilift into a hand winch using some chain etc.

Don't have a Hilift yet. Those things weigh a ton eh, you'd think someone would have made one out of aluminium or something by now, there I go scheming away again.

Your all very quick to jump to the tirfors defence aren't you. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying Tirfors are bad, I've never used one, I would'nt know. I get what your saying about exercise and how it makes you think about getting stuck, but there are times when it all goes to CR@P and your thinking F*#K this is tough (up to your waste in mud, snowing, southerly blowing in your face, strained your back on your last 6 recoverys of that day....you get the idea.) I have no doubt that the hand winch that I am designing will still require alot of effort, I'm just trying to make something a bit more user friendly, so when bucketfuls or CR%P rain down upon you from the heavens you can have a little grin on your face, it could be worse.

Rokhound are you goin on that ashley river trip tomorrow?

MULLET

rokhound · Post by **rokhound** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:00 am

Nope, won't make it Mullet.
The wreck is having a new sytem for changing the low range boxes being made. My own special triple sticks, Have photos of progress and full report coming soon

gomulletgo · Post by **gomulletgo** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:05 am

Scchhwwwweeeet.

MULLET