Winch shackle, why?

Blue

Well-known member
Mar 26, 2004
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AZ
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinking. Although the problem is the hole in the middle of the thimble. Could probably sleeve the whole thimble, cut out the middle hole area, and heat & shrink. Of course any actual winching will then tear up the heat shrink wrap in the inside of the thimble. Such problems we have to ponder....
 

Blueboy

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Apr 20, 2004
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Back in the USA; Rockwood, PA
For me just a simple approach:

F6AD42A2-B217-4310-AD8F-797E194583AB.jpeg

Older 10,000# Warn winch. Have double lined the rope and all has worked for many years.

And yes, if Bill Burke runs rollers with rope, I’m good with it.
 

Blue

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Mar 26, 2004
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AZ
Looking at my setup, maybe I’ll get another line protector to shield the exposed line on the drum. I have a nice neoprene winch cover but the winch is tucked too tight in there to use the cover without major hassle.
 

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Blue

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Mar 26, 2004
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Good ideas with the rubber chunk and simple waterproof tape. The sun just beats the shit out of everything out here.
 

garrett

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Jun 18, 2004
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Middleburg, VA
www.blackdogmobility.com
Hooks vary significantly. Some are designed to fail by the gate opening up slowly vs. cracking/breaking without warning. With that, I've only had maybe 3-4 winch lines fail in 13+ years of training. Two of them were synthetic lines and never a hook/connection. If that's by design, which it would appear by the rating alone.

You can't expect everyone to use the gear in the safest/correct way, so designing a piece of gear to "fail" in the safest way isn't a bad idea in engineering. Not unlike the Hi-Lift with the sheer pin rated to fail first.

I've got a little bit of everything on my fleet of 8-9 training trucks - one with steel line (just to show how much more of a pain in the ass it can be), thimbles, various hooks, Factor 55, etc. Same goes for recovery points - some with good factory points, some aftermarket and some with none - so creating a bridle is needed.

As new gear has been adapted to the off-roading segment, we've always used it as early on as possible. Kinetic ropes, synthetic winch line, soft shackles, etc. It's almost always been a positive addition, even though there were plenty of outside naysayers in the beginning.

Just use what you have as it's designed to be used and you're good. If someone wants to spend $150 on a hook, that's fine. It's no different than busting someones chops about a $400 cooler for their 75 cent Bud Lights.
 

Blue

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Mar 26, 2004
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So I picked up one of those rubber stoppers on Amazon for about $8. Had to get a big one to fit my 7/16" rope. It said it was sized for 1/2" and the hole was indeed 1/2" but the spliced section of my rope aft of the thimble is more like 3/4" in diameter. So I bored out the rubber stopper and installed it....and immediately uninstalled it. Looked like my Disco's cock was hanging out of his fly. I sure as hell wasn't going to hang the big clevis hook on there to look like some fucked up piercing.
 

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Blue

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Mar 26, 2004
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So back to the drawing board. I simply plasti-dipped my thimble to cover & protect the rope from the sun. I put a strip of electrical tape over the rope before dipping to keep the plasti-dip from getting into the rope. Dipped it about 5 times and it looks good. We'll see how it holds up.
 

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Blue

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Then I painstakingly fabricated a drum cover to protect the wound rope from the sun. This is a real marvel of engineering if I do say so myself. Took me hours and hours of CAD work to get the design just right and then very precise custom milling. My rig is built, not bought.
 

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Blue

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Mar 26, 2004
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AZ
I used to have the little yellow Superwinch grab strap flapping in the breeze but I lost it one night during a 3:00 AM nightmare winchfest out of a stinking, muddy bog. I went for subtlety with the black hook. I really wanted gray rope but all Custom Splice had in stock at the time in 7/16 was blue. And hell, blue ain't bad.