Everyone should own a winch

mkirsch

Well-known Member
Back around July 4th I had a coupon for a 2500lb Harbor Freight winch for $50 or something, so I bought one. Figured it might come in handy.

My IH 240 runs, but spews hydraulic oil so really it doesn't. I wanted to move it to my garage shop so I could work on it more than out at the farm.

That little 2500lb winch grunted a bit and got a little warm, but it pulled that tractor up on the trailer with me in the seat.

The coolest part was unloading. I backed the trailer up to the garage door, laid down the ramps, and pushed the tractor back until it gravity just started to take over. Then I stood back and hit the button on the wireless remote and watched the tractor roll smoothly off the trailer and into the garage.

Now I want to go buy a REAL winch.
 
If you get a "snatch block" to run your cable through, it will cut your power requirement in half to run a two part line.
 
My brother has one of those too. Uses it to load logs on a trailer- loading and unloading barrels of bear bait-- lifting deer and bear for skinning-- works great with the remote.
 
I need a electric winch on my boat trailer with a remote or extended cable to operate while I grab boat to get it started on trailer. Wife is no longer able to help with the loading the boat and my little boat is not a drive up option. But then, my fishing days are not much anymore anyway.
 
You don't get much anywhere for 50$. Sounds like you accomplished the job it was intended to do. This forum has both praised and scorned Harbor Freight. I too have one of their winches much much cheaperthan Warn. So far so good. I'm happy thats all that matters. gobble
 
their stock likely changes all the time. at one time the 2500/4000 ( static / rolling ) one they sold was IDENTICAL to the reese one walmart sold, minus the reese tag. in fact.. the hf one had a molded spot in the plastic the reese tag WOULD have gone on.. :)

walmart wanted like 85$.. hf was 49$

i have done the same. IE. moved 30-40hp tractors with it.

I will say though it has pulled a vehicle on a straight trailer too, though I did the deal where you double the cable thru tackle and reduce pull speed by half.. takes foreger to load a car on a car hauler... but it does it and is better than a comealong!
 
those little cheapies are sure handy to have around.
Got one on my NAA to lift the front snowplow (way cheaper than hydraulics.)
Another on a little 4-wheeler which does pretty much everything jobs.
Another mounted to an old floor jack frame with wheels, with its own lawn tractor battery. Chained to a post, it pulls dead tractors into the shop nicely.
I work by myself most of the time, and it's like having a couple very strong friends always with me.
 
At one time I wished that we had a winch anchored to the far wall of the shop that we could use to pull "dead" vehicles, tractors and equipment into the shop with.
 
You can double the pulling force by using a movable
pulley. It goes slower, but less stress on winch.
 
I agree I have 2, one is a 3000lb hand crank job made in the usa and set up to fit into a handy 2 inch receiver hitch mount, the other is a whole winch truck, with gin poles and a 12,000lb deck winch power for that comes via a big block chevy v8 no battery for me, by doubling the line thru snach blocks we've picked up some ridiculously big stuff with that truck
 
With you in the seat? That WAS asking a lot of it! You are right...everyone should own a winch. I have one mounted in a receiver on my 18' trailer. 10K winch was the most I could afford but the trailer is rated at 7K so that is good. Take it out of the receiver and put it on anything else with the same size receiver and you are ready to go. Pulled shrubs away from the house foundation. Load equipment. I love the thing.
 
LOL, yeah, you're not just whistlin' Dixie...

To load it, I had the trailer parked on a slight downhill slope so the "uphill" of the ramps wasn't quite so bad. Figured the safest place to be in case of calamity was on the tractor with the transmission in reverse, one foot on the clutch, and one on the brakes.

From level I probably would've used a snatch block and doubled the lines.

Unloading, the safest place was off to the side so in case of calamity the tractor would simply perform some long-overdue garage cleaning for me.

The HF winches are EXACTLY THE SAME as winches you'll pay 2X, 3X, 4X or more for at other stores with "quality" name brands on them.

Only way to get a better winch is to go with a Warn for the big bucks.
 
Soundguy,
I pull a 4640# lawn roller on an implement trailer using a cheapie HF winch and a block. Going up the ramp, the cable is tight enougth to play a note and the winch if talking, but it gets the job done.

Made a mistake one day, after the roller got on the trailer, the trailer was angled down hill and the roller came rolling towards the front of trailer. I threw a brick under roller. Roller jumped over it. It finally stopped after hitting the battery, crushing it, the winch and finally the front bumper in trailer. I was worried how I would explain it to insurance company how I crushed the back of the truck had the roller came over the front bumper on trailer.
george
 
I couldn't agree more.
I built this gin pole on my wood splitter to lift hevy blocks. It also works very well to drag logs out of the bushes to roadside without having to back the tractor off the roadway. The winch will pull more than the tractor can ancor. I really like the remote. my first version had a togle switch and you had to go back to the splitter to activate the winch. The wife made me a lanyard that goes around my neck and the remote is always at my finger tips.
I am modifiying my skidding arch for my Kubota B2150 and mounting another of those winches into it. I will post pics when I finish it. Hopefully today it will be done.
Loren, the Acg.
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Badlands winches are a Harbor Freight brand. They actually hired some engineers away from one of the major winch makers. Had the name a minute ago, want to say Milemarker now, but that's not right. Wasn't Warn, either.
 

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