Need help to decide what winch to get

[coldwater]

And always remember; never point the winch toward the lake, always point the winch toward something you can pull on.

How many time have I seen that....... uummmmmm..........Chuck....why didn't you back into that hole instead of driving in? Did you not notice the soy bean field in front of you, with the nearest tree being 800 feet away?..............Lemmie pull some line...again......

 

[LongHorn]

How many time have I seen that....... uummmmmm..........Chuck....why didn't you back into that hole instead of driving in? Did you not notice the soy bean field in front of you, with the nearest tree being 800 feet away?..............Lemmie pull some line...again......

X2 on that, maybe a front & rear winch setup. Mine works on either end.

 

[SANDBLASTER]

$1,499.00 minus AMC 150 .00 cash rebate.
WARN M8274-50 Winch Item #: WAR-38631
Premium Series

The Warn 8000 is a cheaper alternative at around 525.00
has a good reputation as a good winch...

 

[Phreak]

I use a 12000lb warn on my CJ
I would rather be over powered then under..
Titan makes a pretty good winch.. allot of guys
around here use them and a 12000 goes for about 800cnd

I personally will only use a Warn.. tried..tested.. and true..
never here anything bad... and i have yet to see one break down
in mid pull...

 

[BajaEdition]

I use a 12000lb warn on my CJ
I would rather be over powered then under..
Titan makes a pretty good winch.. allot of guys
around here use them and a 12000 goes for about 800cnd

I personally will only use a Warn.. tried..tested.. and true..
never here anything bad... and i have yet to see one break down
in mid pull...

I used to think Warn or die, but since I put a T max on I decided there is a different brand of winch, I have put that puppy through hell and back doing adopt a trail work and such, recoveries and just pulling a few logs around and it has really amazed me. A little louder than a Warn but a great winch.
I think 9000 pounds is good enough for a CJ, run a Warn Powerplant on my 67.

 

[IOPort51]

It is up to you to decide what gives you the most bangs for your peso but with the possible exception of one of those PTO winches on the back of an 18 wheeler I would say you just can't have too much winch.
The only time My 8000 pound warn ever let me down was the aforementioned incident at the lake.

 

[Phreak]

I used to think Warn or die, but since I put a T max on I decided there is a different brand of winch, I have put that puppy through hell and back doing adopt a trail work and such, recoveries and just pulling a few logs around and it has really amazed me. A little louder than a Warn but a great winch.
I think 9000 pounds is good enough for a CJ, run a Warn Powerplant on my 67.

I,m not sure a 8000 or 9000 is good enough
once you start to add bigger tires.. modded bumpers and sliders
all that extra weight adds to the pull and double that in 2 feet of mud..
your more likely going to burn out a solenoid with a 8000 or 9000
which is why i say more winch will mean less likely to burn out.

Your right in most cases you can easily get buy..

Just my opinion
Phreak

 

[Old Dog]

I,m not sure a 8000 or 9000 is good enough
once you start to add bigger tires.. modded bumpers and sliders
all that extra weight adds to the pull and double that in 2 feet of mud..
your more likely going to burn out a solenoid with a 8000 or 9000
which is why i say more winch will mean less likely to burn out.

Your right in most cases you can easily get buy..

Just my opinion
Phreak

I think you are right, Baja wheels in mostly rocks and 8or9k is good. I play in the rocks also so I can get away with that. But I have been in deep gumbo where it stalled out a 8k. Just depends on where you play.

 

[BajaEdition]

yea I guess us rock crawlers need wimpy 9000 pound winches, after all we never pull anything else.
takes a group of us to create a new rock garden moving rocks over 5 tons a piece
of course on this day we moved rocks for 6 hours strait putting strain on the Warns like all getout. was a fun day doing Adopt a trail work for the SBNF building a new rock garden on a all ready killer trail. The garden was thought out and approved by the Forest Service to protect a near by stream, one of the biggest chores was moving rocks biger than Jeeps to keep everyone out of the stream, the smaller rocks the size of couches and chairs were easy.
this is after a triple hookup with snatch blocks, we were beat

rigged to a beast pulling it over rocks to set, single hookup no snatchblock

 

[BajaEdition]

we also invented a new game, we would chain a rock about the size of a large night stand to our bumpers and crossed the rock garden, I think by that time testosterone was really flowing and we just were making stupid bets, I made it with no problems, we had one guy get hung up but a few well placed stones and he made it, Fun Stuff

 

[IOPort51]

I have the official , optional Warn snatch block. slows things down a bit but it does make 8000 into 16000. You just gotta love the laws of physics.

 

[Phreak]

Those are great picks.. you have anymore...
Nothing like a Jeep earning its money on the trails.. lol

 

[BajaEdition]

of trail work, or of my old TJ ?

 

[BajaEdition]

here


and here


and here we drained this water crossing


to line the bottom with rocks and protect the stream


then undamned it and let it flow again, this was another requested project

 

[BajaEdition]

our rock crawling game that day


yes that is insane crossing a rock garden dragging that, but fun

this is the way into that trail
it is closed because of a fire 2 years ago, we try to keep this fence up but guys trash it, we are rebuilding the trail in quite s few places as well as removing what are called deadfalls, trees that need to be cut down because they were killed by the fire. We hope the trail will be opened this spring, the club has put thousands of manhours into repairs overseen by the Forest Service to keep this trail a black diamond trail and we are fiercely proud of our work,

 

[BajaEdition]

getting back to the original question
During the course of that project We have moved tons of rocks both big and small, we have paved 2 water crossings with cobble stone sized rocks to protect them from erosion. We have cleared more trees than we can remember to count, using winches a lot, we have built one nice rock garden and moved some huge boulders to protect areas and keep visitors on trail. a major washout of a trail on a cliff area was shored up using grabion cages with tons of rocks secured to the face with long hand driven spikes and then had a forestry bull dozer repair the road above. Thousands of hours of manpower, and there has been a lot of winch work. hours and hours of winch work.
Some of the rocks we have moved we needed multible winches and custom rigging using tackle. It has been a long project and I will answer this question about what winch.
Stars of the project have been 9000 and 9500 pound Warn winches.
I used my T max on weekend because I had taken the JK in there and it was stellar, but I do not believe it has the guts of a Warn, we have used a few Smitty built's of which one burnt out. A Mile Marker has fried also.
Whenever we had a major load, the Warn guys lined up first and really abused their winches and never did one fall by the wayside.
If you were to ask me a brand of winch to buy, I will point to Warn every time as I see them abused and just shake it off.
The true question you should ask is, if I was really stuck, and needed to get out by myself, how much is a bullet proof winch worth?
At that moment a 1000 dollar winch is kinda cheap knowing you can depend on it.

OK let everyone flame me over this post now. I still will stand behind it.

as a side note, I went over to synthetic line 4 years ago, and have pulled side by side with cable over the length of this project, I still have my original synth lines on, I gave three cables to guys who tore their cables to pieces on this project. I figured they were just taking up space in my garage. I also believe firmly in Synthetic line.

 

[coldwater]

I have the official , optional Warn snatch block. slows things down a bit but it does make 8000 into 16000. You just gotta love the laws of physics.

Exactly what I do. If the time comes when I need more grunt, rather than doubling the cost of my winch, I bought a $50 block and double the line. Case closed for me.

 

[mredjeep]

Agree...The 8000 Warn stand up is Nice.It is faster than other winches.

Makes a difference when you are in a Bad spot!

 

[JeepDat]

Thanks for the heads up on the Silverback series, after your review and the stellar reviews from buyers on the site, I decide to pick up the 9500lb Silverback & winch mount.