WINCH DRUM EXTENSION

[4x4rookie]

Anyone know if alloy extensions are available for winch drums ?.
Want to increase the diameter of the spool sides so more rope can be added.
I realises some people make the spool wider to carry more rope, but id like to increase the sides.
Basically a washer shaped alloy ring could be welded onto the existing spool if the internal diameter of the ring matched that of the outside of the spool, only looking for the ring to be 15 - 20mm depth.
Anyone know if a ring can be bought or I could get a couple profile cut made ?
cheers

[Checkerhead]

First question is, can you weld (well) to the alloy drum. Some cast alloy's do not weld, some weld fine.

Assuming you can weld to it. Should be easy enough to get a couple of rings laser cut. Personally I would cut them so that the ID is about 20mm smaller than your drum and weld them to the outside of the existing ears. That way you can get a fillet weld inside and out. Probably easier to get a couple of good welds this way. The ends of the drum can see reasonably high loads if you are running synthetic rope.

That said, I have not done this, hopefully some one else has tried to weld an alloy drum. I assume its on a Safari?

[Smurf]

More layers of rope on the drum effectively lowers its pulling power.
Why not just get a long winch extension made for when you need it?

[mudlva]

More layers of rope on the drum effectively lowers its pulling power.
Why not just get a long winch extension made for when you need it?

Second that.
Also the deeper the drum the more the rope will pull down into the lower layers. Irs this issue that will damage the rope more than anything else.
A wider drum is way better than a tall drum.
Imho.

[4x4rookie]

hi
yes on a pto safari.
I'm only wanting to put on 35 metres of 12mm amsteel rope. 30 metres will fit now - just - but its not idiot proof and not ideal.
So only wanting to slightly increase diameter, its not like I'm wanting to put 50 metres on, just wanting to better accommodate the 35 metres of 12mm rope.
Like the welding advice regarding over lapping the extension ring !
Has anyone welded these winch drums ?
cheers

[derk]

that 12mm rope is going to cause you a lot of problems mate on a standard safari drum you'll be lucky to spool 25m onto it with it all layered snug and tight and that'll come right up flush to the top of the drum , the problem is even with increasing the diameter of the drum ends to fit 35m on when you come to winching you'll find you'll need to spool most of the 35m off and find something 35m away to winch off to allow for the rope to layer evenly and low on the drum when you winch closer your winching on an already full or nearly full drum and invariably winching on an angle which isn't going to allow enough room for the rope bunching up on the side(s) of the drum it dosent take many wraps of 12mm rope to come up past your extended 15-20mm drum ends and jump over and jam up and also add extra leverage and stress onto an already weak alloy drum that's well known for breaking the sides off under side load to use 12mm rope on a safari drum you have to drop down to a short length (around 15m) to allow for the rope to bunch up on the side(s) of the drum or you have to get a wider deeper steel drum made up, you can base a steel drum off a piece of 50mm tube instead of the factory cast diameter of about 110mm so that'll give you a few more layers to start with and you can increase the width of the drum or if you use an early mk safari winch you can make the drum even wider again, don't forget to factor in a seal to stop the shit getting through the inside of the drum to the main shaft go talk to the winch challenge jokers (past and current) that have been there and done that with 12mm rope or better still drop back to 10mmm amsteel it makes life a whole pile easier and less expensive and complicated

rule of thumb is a full drum of rope is going to give you more problems than a drum that isn't as full

[Checkerhead]

^^^^ That is good advice. It sucks having to stop a third of the way through a pull, spool out half the rope and lay it on the opposite side of the drum, so you can carry on with out jumping rope over the side.

As a test, go hook yourself up to a tree, not dead ahead, but a meter or two off to the side. Then winch in while going straight, not towards the tree. See how much of your rope you can pull in under these conditions. If you only need a few more meters, maybe consider adding on to the sides. But as above, the alloy drums have been known to break once you run synthetic rope on them, so making the sides taller my not go well (I haven't seen one break so not sure what their weakness is sorry)

You might be better off going the whole hog and building a steel drum.

[mudlva]

Coxsy has been down the rout of 12mm rope on his saf and then sold the said rope and has now reduced to 8mm.
The theory being that he can fit a lot more rope on. Plus on easy pulls 8mm is fine and when it gets hard or heavy he uses the pully block which reduces the load on both the winch and the rope.
The saf winch ends are know to blow out with synthethic rope and more so with larger rope.

That said it would be interesting to see how the additional ring could help strenghten the walls.

[coxsy]

suppose I could ask good price for standard drums ,have two,of them
I ll be back in August

[Crash bandicoot]

Take it from the guys who spend there weekends in places like rally woods, costa and pretoria where you almost every track is a winch job, you are better off making a wider steel drum or putting some hoops on you bullbar to loop the excess rope around as you only want another 5 or so meters..as you will probably bemore then 5 or so meters from your winch anchor most of the time anyway.

I have a 35 meter 10mm steel and 40 meter 12mm synthetic

[Craydiver]

Alloy drum - I had heard all the talk about them breaking, had my Saf PTO for a few yrs including 2 Manukau winch challenges no issues, then I shattered the side of my drum, winching someone else up woodhill late last yr,
why? - had about 50% out but it was bunching up on one side during the pull, the level of compressive tension dyneema type ropes put on winch drums is huge. Even after it shattered the sides, later at home it still took some work to unwind the rope that was left as it was bound on real tight around the shattered edges. this was with 12mm dyneema (ex Bridon)
Im a metallurgical engineer by profession, so material engineering is my thing, so I can confirm, the Alloy cast OEM PTO drums are really only good for steel rope, IMHO, which wont put the compression loads on to the drum like plasma . The guy who owned the pto prior had the old white sheathed plasma for 5 years, never broke it, but I doubt he ever really loaded it up. Also I believe the older sheathed plasma had less elongation than the newer dyneema's on the market, ropes with higher elongation properties will cause more compressive loads on the drum when spooling on under lots of tension.

As for length, you can get up to 35m of 12mm blue dyneema easy if you spool with some tension on the std PTO, some will say its too much, but again from my experience its not the total amount on the drum, but simply the rope bunching on one end under tension that breaks them. Ive now got steel drum, got it slighter wider (you can fit a wider PTO between chassis member on saf)will be good for 50m plus rope.

your idea of welding a ring to make it deeper will allow more rope, but its the ends of the drum that will break. you can weld to the cast Ally, but also where you weld, in the heat affected zone HAZ of the cast material, will be weaker again, so you would actually make your drums end more susceptible to breaking.
If your expecting to do some real winching under big loads with dyneema - spend the bucks and get a steel drum made like I should have done (I should have known better)
Check out Bernie at http://www.jkracing.co.nz/ he did my new drum.
even my main shaft in the PTO was twisted at the spline by 10deg, so these winches can really get some big loads on them.
Go 10mm if your really after length, but personally I wouldn't bother any smaller as the saf is 2.3t, the ropes get nicked and abraided easily so the bigger dia gives a bit more safety factor for the wear n tear reducing breaking load.

[mudtroll]

I will be selling my wider steel drum Nissan PTO winch soon. Currently has 75m of 10mm on it, could easily take 100m/10mm. Let me know if your interested.

[4x4rookie]

Have PM you MUDTROLL REGARDING YOUR WINCH, LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU.
CHEERS