1911
Expedition Leader
IMO MasterPull or Viking either one is as good as it gets. Quality doesn't come cheap.
Air Lockers or Factory Lockers, and M8000 winch questions
- Thread starter KevinMLee
- Start date
IMO MasterPull or Viking either one is as good as it gets. Quality doesn't come cheap.
Mountainhound
Explorer
Mine came with a sleave and I left it on till I went to use it after a couple times I took it off, it just made it so hard to pull the line.
Jonathan Hanson
Well-known member
Buy from Viking. Price isn't everything, and Thor Jonsson will give you expert, personal advice and service.
Driver-Navigator
Explorer
I have Viking's 3/8" diameter rope.
KevinMLee
Wannabe
Hmmm yeah I read this on the Master-Pull website! I know the M8000 is 5/16" line at 100' so I was thinking of going 3/8" line at 85'. I'll have to call Master-Pull and see what they say about that.
You guys are right... I'm starting to see that Viking and Master-Pull seem to be the company for winch lines and some accessories. All said and done, I think I may go with Master-Pull for the winch line, and Viking for probably everything else. I like the idea of Master-Pull's Superline having a much higher breaking strength for the same size rope... super plus in my book.
FYI, Master-Pull's website has a really good source with pictures on how to re-spool your winch with the new synthetic rope.
Thank you all for your time and effort. I have a much clearer picture and understanding of my equipment and where I will go with it in the near future. I think without you guys, I wouldn't know what to do except run around and scream and shout when I get stuck. =)
I'm running 3/8" x 80' of amsteel blue, with a regular steel thimble, no hook. I carry a 3/8" x 40' extension with plain thimble ends. I have a 4" x 12' lifting sling to use as a tree saver or rock anchor. Generic ebay 20k snatch block, and a few 3/4" shackles. This gives me plenty of rigging options. The 3/8"x 40' extension is plenty strong to be used at the anchor-end of a pull, even if I put a snatch block at the end of it and potentially put 16k pulling force on it.
You'll know when to replace your winch line, after years of use and abuse you'll want to change it when you no longer trust it. It's not as critical as with a climbing rope where you want to replace it after X number of big falls. A 3/8" amsteel blue rope has a break strength of 21,000 lbs if I remember right, and that's more than 2x the max pull capacity of your winch. If it gets chafed and starts to get thin, that's when I'd consider changing it and using the remaining good part as an extension. Weighs nothing, takes up very little space, and adds a lot of versatility to your rigging.
Who am I kidding anyways? Most of my recoveries involve pulling cars out of snow banks and ditches in the winter. Or recovering one of my buddies when he does something stoopid and gets high centered. Out of those dozens of pulls, I've only had to pull myself ONCE. And the one time that I had to do fancy rigging was to roll over a vehicle that was on its roof. I was glad to have all that gear then.
If you think about your recovery options before you jump right into it, you can often set up a straight pull, which puts minimal load on your fair lead and rope, and helps prevent packing of the line all up on one end of the drum. This also is convenient, because you won't have to freespool it all out to spool it all back in properly.
In any case, it sounds like you're on the right track.
Have fun!
Containerized
Adventurer
I'll jump in with my experience, which is limited. I have a WARN PowerPlant unit (8000#) on one truck and an M8000 on the other. I've never really been short on winch power. Of course you can always get a bigger winch - it's like how you can't have enough ammo when the zombies show up. But for our purposes, it's fine. Now, I could clarify that I'm not a rockcrawler, I don't deal with much mud (two very short rainy seasons per year, the rest of the year it's one dry with 120 day periods without a drop of rain), and maybe most importantly where I am is relatively flat. Yes, your rig is on wheels, but that cuts both ways. If you are winching up-hill or at odd angles often, you're putting a TREMENDOUS amount of stress on the winch and the cable.
The most helpful advice I've gotten was a GOOD winching instructional session from a kind person (who had a loaded-down Nissan Patrol and used to be a country-level exec for IOM in Uganda). He made two important points.
First, you set up the scenario when you're about to winch. This means that YOU are in charge of this one part of the situation. You can't control that your truck is stuck or the stickiness of the mud or the unfavorable nature of the terrain. But you CAN control how your recovery is going to play out. Most people (his observation, which I've found to be true after two years seeing expat mizungus trying to winch out their Defenders with alarming frequency!) spend WAY too little time thinking about setting up the recovery because they're in a rush to fire up the winch and do the fun part. Be calm, be patient, and think first. It will save lots of stress on you, your equipment, and whoever was in the passenger seat until you managed to get stuck.
Second, do whatever you can to help the winch do its job. It is part of a system. You almost ALWAYS have something else you can do in addition to using your winch. You can fill in some rocks to make more of a ramp for the truck. You can clear a path so that once you get going you're sure that you're going to get past the hard part. You can think through what your ideal settings are - low range? locker? better to have the clutch in initially until you get onto the next bit of ground, then give power? maybe best to tie that slider to the nearby tree for the next five meters just to make sure you're not going to tip?
Honestly, with these two things in mind, you'll just be a more responsible operator of your vehicle, but also you'll save yourself lots of headaches.
As with most things in life, freaking out and working quickly doesn't contribute much to your forward progress. Plan, use the equipment you've got, then re-evaluate.
The most helpful advice I've gotten was a GOOD winching instructional session from a kind person (who had a loaded-down Nissan Patrol and used to be a country-level exec for IOM in Uganda). He made two important points.
First, you set up the scenario when you're about to winch. This means that YOU are in charge of this one part of the situation. You can't control that your truck is stuck or the stickiness of the mud or the unfavorable nature of the terrain. But you CAN control how your recovery is going to play out. Most people (his observation, which I've found to be true after two years seeing expat mizungus trying to winch out their Defenders with alarming frequency!) spend WAY too little time thinking about setting up the recovery because they're in a rush to fire up the winch and do the fun part. Be calm, be patient, and think first. It will save lots of stress on you, your equipment, and whoever was in the passenger seat until you managed to get stuck.
Second, do whatever you can to help the winch do its job. It is part of a system. You almost ALWAYS have something else you can do in addition to using your winch. You can fill in some rocks to make more of a ramp for the truck. You can clear a path so that once you get going you're sure that you're going to get past the hard part. You can think through what your ideal settings are - low range? locker? better to have the clutch in initially until you get onto the next bit of ground, then give power? maybe best to tie that slider to the nearby tree for the next five meters just to make sure you're not going to tip?
Honestly, with these two things in mind, you'll just be a more responsible operator of your vehicle, but also you'll save yourself lots of headaches.
As with most things in life, freaking out and working quickly doesn't contribute much to your forward progress. Plan, use the equipment you've got, then re-evaluate.
KevinMLee
Wannabe
:Wow1: eBay Generic? Is that safe? I thought it wasn't wise to trust your gear to generic products especially the snatch. Considering that you could be pulling twice the load of the winch which is enormously lethal.
Will do! It really boils down to common sense. As a photographer in this modern age, we tend to be lured out by many companies which promise great things from their products, but the fact of the matter is, you don't need everything because its always the simple stuff that is tried and true. As my photography professor said KISS or "Keep It Simple Stupid".
However, adding 3 snatch blocks to a recovery pull does sound pretty awesome! :sombrero:
HillbillyfromAL
Explorer
FWIW I have 100ft of 3/8 synthetic on my M8000. It's Warn Spydura. I've use it a handful of times and once was a hard side pull with no ill effects. Get the 100ft rope.
KevinMLee
Wannabe
Interesting, I went with the 3/8" x 85' of Master-Pull Superline. Reason, is that the working load is beyond almost any pull configuration I may setup and 85' because thats the length Warn recommends. besides, I'll be able to get to the 2nd wrap faster so my pulls will be stronger.
Your choice, really. I don't pull out the snatch block very often. Mostly for changing direction. Since you've spent the big coin on spydura line, you might as well pick up an ARB9000 snatch block.
KevinMLee
Wannabe
My thoughts exactly, but if I absolutely have to use a block, I'm in one heap of trouble. Gotta save for it, was thinking either the ARB 9000 block or the MasterPull one... Heard good things of both, but I guess it's almost apples and oranges. I hear a majority of ARB stuff is made in Taiwan!
coax
Adventurer
I'm a bit behind the ball but for those that may reference this thread RE: winch line. There are a number of maritime supply companies out there that will sell you a length of any variant of dyneema, put a thimble on it, and send the rope to you. They probably won't stock the super nice saftey thimbles, etc, but the price is fairly reasonable.
I got my 80 feet of sk-78 from westmarine, and they were super helpful. I think it was ~200 bucks (iirc). Not too fancy, but I just put a piece of tubular webbing on the last 15 ft. as a guard for both abrasion and UV, and called it good. Probably 4 times as strong as the steel cable. Of course everyone has different needs for their winch rope; my primary reason for moving to rope instead of cable was safety, and my low usage of the rope was why I went with a lower cost option.
I got my 80 feet of sk-78 from westmarine, and they were super helpful. I think it was ~200 bucks (iirc). Not too fancy, but I just put a piece of tubular webbing on the last 15 ft. as a guard for both abrasion and UV, and called it good. Probably 4 times as strong as the steel cable. Of course everyone has different needs for their winch rope; my primary reason for moving to rope instead of cable was safety, and my low usage of the rope was why I went with a lower cost option.
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KevinMLee
Wannabe
I don't have the nice AirLockers, but my Rig does have the factory E-Lockers, which from everyone says, is a good enough for what I plan to do. I don't plan on any serious Rock Crawling, but more of a trail ride experience, so E-Lockers are it for me. If there is absolutely NOTHING else to upgrade/mod/etc, then maybe.