Synthetic winch rope slipping

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bda4130
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Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Did a bit of winching today and noticed that even with a couple of layers of rope wrapped around my winch drum, the rope would still slip on the drum under load. I spooled it all out and wound it back on under load, but it still slips.

The drum is quite smooth and slippery from the rope sliding against it. Could I just give the drum a bit of a rough up with a file to help it grip, or does anyone have any better suggestions? It's a runva 12000lb and I'm running that fancy blue rope ( can't remember what it's name is) got it from Gguy so it's not cheap crappy ghetto rope.

Also, the section of rope that is slipping has got a bit hot and shiny. This might be contributing to the problem. could re-splice the rope round the other way so the fried bit is at the hook end instead of the winch end.

Any thoughts welcome, cheers.
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kbushnz
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by kbushnz »

Haven't had that problem yet....
Either on the electric low mount or the PTO.
However I have the ends attached to the drum...
Electric uses an electrical terminal crimp (reduced the strands in the rope to get a smaller diameter) and attaches to the original WARN location.
PTO uses the original clamp.
Perhaps not having the rope clamped in place is enough to allow it to spin rather than lock on tight.
I have even taken mine down to a few wraps and still winch in under full load....
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bda4130
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

kbushnz wrote:Haven't had that problem yet....
Either on the electric low mount or the PTO.
However I have the ends attached to the drum...
Electric uses an electrical terminal crimp (reduced the strands in the rope to get a smaller diameter) and attaches to the original WARN location.
PTO uses the original clamp.
Perhaps not having the rope clamped in place is enough to allow it to spin rather than lock on tight.
I have even taken mine down to a few wraps and still winch in under full load....

Cheers, might give the electrical clamp trick a try, as my winch does have a mounting point the same as the warn. That way I should at least be able to get the first few winds on under a bit of load which I can't manage to do with just a slip knot. How well do the crimps stay on? Seems like they wouldn't be capable of handling much pulling force?
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kbushnz
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by kbushnz »

Mine doesn't take much load.... But enough with a few wraps on to make the rope clamp tight around the drum...
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sibainmud
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by sibainmud »

I have had this problem with a runva 9500lb series 1.
Here is a list of the failed solutions,
Multiple cable ends (torn off all of them)(copper and steel)
Broken anchor bolts (3xM6, 2xM8 and a M10)
Self amalgamating rubber tape over drum (tore it all to shreds)
Clove hitch knot around drum (transfers load straight end lug)

What did work;
Drill and tap centre of drum with large fine thread and splice eye in the "bitter end" of rope, bolt to drum with large washer through eye. In this case I used a 7/16 UNF high tensile bolt.

No problem with series 2 runva as there is a big hole in the drum that the rope is spliced through 8)

Image

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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by wjw »

Those bolts etc aren't designed to hold the rope under load, only to help with putting the rough on. I had this problem when I had my drum powder coated, ended up using my axe to and some course sand paper to roughen up the drum. Been working great ever since. WARN say the drum must have a rough finish for both wire and synthetic rope.
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bda4130
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Primo, cheers guys. I might start with roughing up the drum, and if that doesn't work I'll do the bolt in drum trick.
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Sadam_Husain
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by Sadam_Husain »

bda4130 wrote:Did a bit of winching today and noticed that even with a couple of layers of rope wrapped around my winch drum, the rope would still slip on the drum under load.



If your trying to winch with only a couple of layers left on the drum your rope's too short, go buy yourself a longer rope then you'll have the old one to turn into an extn and then you can do even longer winches :wink:
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Sadam_Husain wrote:
bda4130 wrote:Did a bit of winching today and noticed that even with a couple of layers of rope wrapped around my winch drum, the rope would still slip on the drum under load.



If your trying to winch with only a couple of layers left on the drum your rope's too short, go buy yourself a longer rope then you'll have the old one to turn into an extn and then you can do even longer winches :wink:


My rope is 45m long.
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Fakey
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by Fakey »

Then use a winch extension rather than the whole rope :wink:
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Sadam_Husain
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by Sadam_Husain »

bda4130 wrote:
Sadam_Husain wrote:
bda4130 wrote:Did a bit of winching today and noticed that even with a couple of layers of rope wrapped around my winch drum, the rope would still slip on the drum under load.



If your trying to winch with only a couple of layers left on the drum your rope's too short, go buy yourself a longer rope then you'll have the old one to turn into an extn and then you can do even longer winches :wink:


My rope is 45m long.



nah mate its too short if your pulling the whole rope off the drum :D

edit*
and your meaning a couple of wraps around the drum not layers arent you? :?:
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by crazyclark31 »

i've got the saame winch as you and haven't had any issues. I'm just running the standard rope that comes with the winch. to help stop it from slipping i run the rope across the drum then started wrapping the rope on as normal. this means when the rope has any load on it,it tightens its grip on the rope. seems to work for me.
But i have to agree with sadam and say if your down to the last couple of wraps then you'd be better off putting an extenstion on and having a few more wraps of rope.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by 4WDbits »

Only time I've seen the rope slip around the drum was when the rope was loose on the drum.
Take all except the last couple of turns off bar and put some weight on it as you winch in. After 4 or 5 turns are on the drum you should be able to winch quite hard, once half a layer is on you should be able to winch at virtually full load.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by wjw »

4WDbits wrote:Only time I've seen the rope slip around the drum was when the rope was loose on the drum.
Take all except the last couple of turns off bar and put some weight on it as you winch in. After 4 or 5 turns are on the drum you should be able to winch quite hard, once half a layer is on you should be able to winch at virtually full load.


After I had the drum powder coated it was perfectly smooth, even with a full layer on it started to slip, once we stopped it slipping, we snapped the rope, so it was working hard.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Sadam_Husain wrote:["]
bda4130 wrote:Did a bit of winching today and noticed that even with a couple of layers of rope wrapped around my winch drum, the rope would still slip on the drum under load.



If your trying to winch with only a couple of layers left on the drum your rope's too short, go buy yourself a longer rope then you'll have the old one to turn into an extn and then you can do even longer winches :wink:


My rope is 45m long.[/quote]


nah mate its too short if your pulling the whole rope off the drum :D

edit*
and your meaning a couple of wraps around the drum not layers arent you? :?:[/quote]

Nah, it used to grip sweet as once its wound round the drum 4 or 5 times, what I'm saying is it now slips with 2 full layers of rope, and it even slipped on Sunday with the drum almost totally full ( would have been aprox 35 meters wound as tight as I could get it to wind) a thought has just occurred to me that might be a factor... I washed the rope recently with soapy water, could have made it a bit slippery, it was totally dry when I was using it though.
Might give it a thrash in the washing machine when the woman folk is out.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by Sadam_Husain »

shit mate slipping like that with almost a full drum wound on with tension is pretty much unheard of, if my ropes really badly caked in mud I'll fill the chillybin up with water and a bit of soap and give it a clean up but its never slipped after its had any soap through it :shock:

what diameter is your rope not that it should make any difference?
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Sadam_Husain wrote:shit mate slipping like that with almost a full drum wound on with tension is pretty much unheard of, if my ropes really badly caked in mud I'll fill the chillybin up with water and a bit of soap and give it a clean up but its never slipped after its had any soap through it :shock:

what diameter is your rope not that it should make any difference?


Yeah, I'll be surprised if it is the soap but I'll wash it anyway to eliminate that. Not sure of the rope diameter off the top of my head, but it's not small, must be 10mm or bigger.

I've wound it onto the drum loading it up by hand, pulling the weight of the truck, and pulling the truck up a hill, and it slipped every time. I'm gonna try all the things everyone has suggested one at a time till I figure out the cause. Will start with washing it and then roughing up the super smooth drum.... Hopefully I solve it, I'll keep you posted!
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by sibainmud »

Sadam_Husain wrote:shit mate slipping like that with almost a full drum wound on with tension is pretty much unheard of, if my ropes really badly caked in mud I'll fill the chillybin up with water and a bit of soap and give it a clean up but its never slipped after its had any soap through it :shock:

what diameter is your rope not that it should make any difference?


It can't be that unheard of, it happened to me a number of times. I had tried all the usual tricks mentioned earlier in the thread with varying degrees of success. I've found that unless the bitter end is locked of half decent it can happen :? I'm not saying it happened all the time, but it did happen. Mind you, mine is a very hard working winch and I wasn't only pulling myself out but also trucks twice my size out of very large and deep holes. One method that did work ok was to criss-cross the first turns on the drum under half load and then wind the second layer even like what you do with wire cable.

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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by Drurban »

I use Self amalgamating rubber tape over drum and have no problems with it, I have taken the rope off and the tape is a bit squished but still forms a rough surface for the rope to cling too. This is on a Runva 10,000 Lb winch.

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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by wjw »

Drurban wrote:I use Self amalgamating rubber tape over drum and have no problems with it, I have taken the rope off and the tape is a bit squished but still forms a rough surface for the rope to cling too. This is on a Runva 10,000 Lb winch.

Chur


Ahhh, now theres a good idea, have a roll of that in the garage :-)
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by DSTRBU »

Oh dear slipping rope, no good might have to sell the toyota and buy a suzuki :lol:. Better have that shit sorted by the time we hit rallywoods coz your going to need a winch on the tracks ill take you on :twisted:

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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by comcom »

I was told that covering the drum with the grip tape that skaters use on their skateboards works well.
Haven't tried it but it seemed like a good idea.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

DSTRBU wrote:Oh dear slipping rope, no good might have to sell the toyota and buy a suzuki :lol:. Better have that shit sorted by the time we hit rallywoods coz your going to need a winch on the tracks ill take you on :twisted:

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I don't need a winch, I'll borrow your pony to snatch me out. Now get off the Internet and get back to your study ponyboy.

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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Put my rope through the washing machine to make sure it had no soap residue that might be contributing to my issues.

Then I wound it on to the drum under load, I could just manage to get the rope to slip with my full body weight hanging off it with the amount of rope on it in the picture below:

Image
Then I roughed up the drum with a grinder:

Image

Wound on the rope and only got this far before I couldn't budge it no matter how hard I pulled.
Image
Last edited by bda4130 on Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Haven't actually winched off it yet... I'll post up the results when I do.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by wjw »

That's pretty much what I did with the axe head in the bush. Got so,e funny looks swinging the axe at the winch
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bda4130
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

wjw wrote:That's pretty much what I did with the axe head in the bush. Got so,e funny looks swinging the axe at the winch

:lol: yeah, I butchered mine in the privacy of my workshop. I figure it's better to directly rough up the drum rather than put grip tape or self amalgamating tape on it, these things just seem like another thing that could possibly fail, I think someone mentioned the tape they put on eventually ripped off.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by Gnarly Dude »

Red somewhere that for the first couple of layers that you should criss cross them so they grip the drum. Might be worth giving that a go.
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by SV1K »

bda4130 wrote:Wound on the rope and only got this far before I couldn't budge it no matter how hard I pulled.
Image

I think this is your problem, you are not attaching the winch rope to the drum with a bolt or similar (hose clip), all the winch ropes I have seen have been attached in someway other than just wound around the drum.

You need to attach it to the drum and your problems will be solved.

Just my thoughts though...

Reece
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Re: Synthetic winch rope slipping

Post by bda4130 »

Went out and did some urban winching up a mega steep hill... No issues whatsoever, problem solved.

The rope does not necessarily need to be bolted to the drum so long as there is enough friction between the rope and drum. The fixing point on my winch and many others is not solid enough to take full winching load so therefor friction is what's holding the rope anyway. I understand that new winches have a much more substantial mounting point for the start of the rope.

Anyho, this has worked sweet as so if anyone has this issue deep in the jungle pull out your axe and go at that shit :D
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