questions about winches

I looked at a model that said Power IN - Power Out. There is a clutch handle on the end, opposite of the motor. Is this to release the drum so it will free spool out? I definite do not want to always use Power Out to unwind the cable.

About once a year, I hand winch something on to the trailer and on July 3 rd I will need to drag a Ford 2n on to it, that has flat tires. How big is big enough? My tractor is 7500. (without flat tires) I just want to buy what I need and be happy with it.
Thank you
Steve

It might help to know what make and model winch
you are looking at.I put a Ramsey re8000 on my
trailer to load 6000 pound JD crawlers.You might not need 8000 lbs of pulling power for wheeled
tractors but they are not that much more expensive than 5000 or 6000 lb models.
Most planetary drive winchs don"t like to power out for long as they are working against the brake.Freespooling the cable is a must so make sure the winch you look at does that.
Luck,JAinVA

Most winches have a free spool lock out. You unlock the drum and you can free spool out as much cable as you want. Most winches warn against always powering out the cable just to unspool it. If you use a snatch block and hook it to the front of the tractor and run the cable back to a secure anchor on the trailer near the winch you can double your pulling power. I comes at a price however because it takes twice as much cable and time to winch anything on the trailer. I use a hand winch on my small flat bed this way. I once winched a Farmall W6 with totally flat tires up the ramp. Wasn't much fun and it took awhile, but I got it on there.

I just put a warn 8000 pound on my 21 ft bumper pull trailer.I bought it off ebay for 475 bucks.
local places wanted 650 for the same winch.

I ran around with quite a few wenches when I was in college. And a few in High school.


Gene

I bought an Harbor Frieght 1200 pound winch which I use to load and unload my tractors including a Farmall M which goes about 7000 pounds and a steel wheel F-12 that is slightly less. It sells for $300 most of the time. They also have a 9000 pounder for 249 on sale. I love my winch. and, yes the handle on the side is to release the spool for free wheeling. Also the winch goes forward and back under power. Just add battery and load or unload without worry. Either of these winches will load your tractor. The larger has 80 foot of cable so if necessary you can double the power with a snatch block

Generally (without seeing the one you are looking at), the clutch will allow free wheel selection. Only use power out to slightly loosen line if under tension so it can be pulled out or to "ease" tractor down ramps.

Have used an 8500# winch for 10-12 years, primarily for loading small (~6500#) dead crawlers. Had 1 time when on a double line pull the dually and trailer (chocked and parking brake set, on gravel) tried to pull to dead machine, plenty of winch, just too much load. You can only pull what you can anchor.

Good luck.

Its a pain in the rear, but use pulleys to increase your pulling power. Say that you are dragging dead weight of 6,000 lbs straight from your hook to your winch. If you add one pulley at the 6,000 lbs to create a loop back to the winch, you will still be pulling dead weight of 6,000 lbs. But if you add 2 pulleys, one at each end, you cut the 6,000 lbs to 3,000 lbs. Four pulleys cut it to 1,500 lbs and so on. Snatch blocks will do this for you. Yep, it involves dragging cable back and forth, but you can give a winch rated at 2,000 lbs the same power as one rated at 8,000 lbs dragging dead weight by using pulleys.

When I was stationed in Germany, I got an M818 5-ton stuck in the mud real good, but there was a huge tree near by, about dead center up front. I had more than enough cable to use a snatch block at the tree, and one back at my front so that I could have dragged the cable out, back, and out again, doubling my pulling power, or cutting it in half, depending how you choose to look at it. The cable was heavy, the mud deep, so I dragged it out and around the tree and hooked it there, which was 100% wrong. The cable bit into the tree bark, tearing it up...wrong No. 1. I hooked pulling across the cable grain which kinks and damages the cable...and that's wrong No. 2. Pulling dead weight straight on, mired in mud...wrong No. 3. The pin sheared off to the drum on that huge winch with that huge cable pulled banjo string tight, truck still mired in the mud. No sense in getting another truck stuck, it took a Cat to get it out, and that tore the ground up even worse. People don't like you tearing up their trees and ground, and shouldn't tolerate it. I was wrong on all counts, but I learned my lesson...cheat, cheat never beat. Use snatch blocks, pulleys to do the real hard work for me.

Learn from my mistakes.

Mark

wow when I saw the title I thought you were talking about captain Morgan's girlfriend !

I am thinking what Buzzin is thinking.

War ar them wenches?

What all comes with that 12,000 lb winch? Is there any thing special you need to get to mount it? I have never used one but thinking of putting one on my deck over just in case tractor would break down at show or pull and have to get tractor back on trailer.

Many farm and automotive magazines have a coupon for this at a better price.
HF winch

what smallercrawler said

Generally a fairlead to keep the cable going on the winch will come with the winch.I made my own mounting plate because the ones the winch folks sell are pretty flimsy.Also most large winches will come with around 100ft of cable I usually take at least
1/2 of that off because the smaller the cable roll the more power the winch has also then its no big deal if the cable overlaps when its being wound up.

They'll offer that winch for $299 sometimes,I had one for about 5 years I used it hard and it eventually gave out but for the money and use it had it was a good deal.Replaced it with a 12,500 lb winch off ebay for $309 free shipping from a place in San Diego,It has a 3 year 100% warranty so far its doing fine.

As pof today HF is selling the12000 winch at 299, a real bargain at that [price

I believe Peterson's 4-wheel and off-road has that coupon this month.