Synthetic winch rope is fantastic in nearly every way: light weight, floats on water, easily repairable, safer…however, there is one major downside! Attaching synthetic rope to the winch drum!
Most winches with the exception of the Warn Zeon series (which attaches the winch rope through the drum center) use the “old school” rope lug with set screw to the outside edge of the winch drum. This attachment method works fine for steel winch cable but terrible for synthetic rope.
Often the winch rope will pull out of the attachment lug when too much rope is pulled from the drum on heavy pulls. Alternatively, the lug can actually cut your winch rope! That’s what happened to ours. Sad.
There are “redneck” methods for attaching the rope to the drum including duct tape or with various knots. However, this simple design from BubbaRope “The Grabber” is simply brilliant. It uses the concept of the Chinese finger trap to hold the rope to the drum. Essentially, the harder you pull on the rope the harder to “grabs” or holds to the drum.
This allows you to use all your winch rope (except the final 5 wraps) without fear of the rope breaking free or cutting the rope on the sharp attachment lug. In this video we go over the installation and basic winch spooling method with simple maintenance tips.
