I am getting closer and closer to building a winch unit for getting logs up out of the woods and can't decide what I want to do. At first I thought cheap electric but now I am leaning towards a 9000lb hydraulic winch. I like the fact the hydraulic can pretty much run non stop, not have overheating issues, not need and not need an extra battery on top of my tractor battery. I see that a lot of the hydraulic winches run off of power steering pumps and was wondering if a hydraulic winch can be plumbed into my tractor remotes since it is hydrostatic. If anyone has decent wine setups I would love to see pics and hear ideas on what you do and don't like. Thanks
At work we have 15000 pound warn hydraulic winches on our right of way tractors, the get used a lot! The tractor I operate is a new holland ts110, I run the winch with my loader control since it doesn't have a loader. It is plumbed into the back of tractor seems to run it just fine, they aren't the fastest winches. They have not let us down yet though, we hook winches together and repel basically off high walls. The one on my tractor has been on for almost 10 years and seen some abuse over that time. We had to replace the one one on the JD because of lack of strength I think it had a 10 or 12k. I'm gonna buy one for my new holland 1520 and operate it with the loader controls also, just haven't done it yet.
I had a Carco winch on the back of a dozer I had, but never really used it. It was operated off the machine's hydraulics. Had a couple of PTO operated winches on 4x4 vehicles, a 12,000 # Tulsa on a Dodge Power Wagon and an 8,000 Ramsey on a Jeep CJ-5. I sold the Ramsey to my best friend 25 years ago and he still has it on a truck.
Hydraulic winches are nice. My BIL has one on his dozer. I would pay a lot of attention to flow rate otherwise it could be painfully slow.
A winch on a dozer is a whole different animal! We have an 850 case with I think 30k and that thing is amazing, something will break or it will come out. It is also crazy fast......
Perhaps this isn't helpful but a guy I know uses winches to remove dead livestock and horses. He tried many of them and the only advice he gave about winches is always buy a Warn. He burned up countless winches but the Warns hold up.
Man I have been pricing hydraulic winches and they are pricey so I need to watch for a good used one to pop up somewhere. Has anyone skidded with an electric winch and if so how did it work?
Electric winches are slow. Your tractors charging system will not be adequate to keep the battery charged up either. What do you need to skid? Since you have a BX which is pretty agile can you get the tractor into the logs? You could get an Omni hitch with a logging boom to drag logs. http://omni-mfg.com/TRANSFORMER-Quick-Hitch-Compatible-Platform-P698332.aspx http://omni-mfg.com/OMNI-Logging-Boom-P3162257.aspx
I just finished one with a 8000# hyd. from AW direct for about $1200. I did a thread here but here' another pic
I would stay away from electric, fine for an occasional short pull but not intended for continuous use. I prefer PTO, but my rollback truck has a hydraulic winch.
Wow that's awesome! was that 1200 for the whole setup or winch? That is probably sever overkill for what I need to do but I love it!
That was for the winch only, no cable. The rest I built. It works well and the line speed is reasonable a little under a foot per second.
