By Ron on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 06:25 am: Edit

Chris,

Make sure that you did not get the wire caught behind the drum on the side. This has been know to happen on ramsey platiniums. It is is you could royally mess stuff up if you have not already. You should unspool the top layers by hand unwinding as you go. Based on your description I would say you have a good chance of having gotten the rope caught back there.

Cheers
Ron

PS hope I am wrong

PPS I would recomend more wire rope, preferrable 3/8th from recoverygear.com Amsteel/masterpull I don't like on planetaries.

By Kyle Van Tassel (Kyle) on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 06:40 am: Edit

I thought that was corrected... Hmmm , good point Ron..


Kyle

By Chris Browne on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 06:43 am: Edit

no its kinked twice on the drum....I can unravel to the point where the kinks pinch the wire rope then...Nothing
Never liked the brute force approach but I might just apply more of it very soon.....

By Ron on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 06:56 am: Edit

Well I am glad it has not gone behind the drum. Nice to be wrong on this one. Bad news when it does. Try prying the wire rope up with a crow bar to loosen it up before you back down.

Cheers
Ron

By Milan on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 10:54 am: Edit

Actually the least painful method of unwrapping pinched cable I found, is to wrap the cable on a tow hook/bumper and start reeling out under power. It is slow as you can only work inches at a time and you may have to re-wrap the cable bit it unwraps the cable very easily, with no effort and lot of control. Besides, you usually need to do this only couple of times to small sections of the cable.

By Kent on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 11:38 am: Edit

Ron,

This doesn't really relate to Chris's problem but I was curious about your comments regarding the Masterpull line on planetary winches. I went back and read your article for ROVERS about winches (yeah, I've still got it, believe it or not, part of my "Offroad Bible") and it appears the reason you don't recommend it is because of heat concerns. Seems like I heard about this somewhere before but I can't remember. Could you (or anyone else) elaborate a bit on this?\

Thanks,

Kent

By Ron on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 11:50 am: Edit

Sure Kent,

First off let me say I really like the yarn (to call it what kyle does) but the problem is multi pronged with using it on planetaries.

Warn and superwinch both do not recommend you use it on their (planetary winches):

Here is why. On planetary winches the brake is in the drum, so when you spool out under power the brake is engaged and you are spooling against the brake heat builds up quickly. The wire rope acts as a heat sink disapating this heat away from the drum. The rope acts more as a blanket. Heat kills the winch and weaken/ruins the rope. So IF you have masterpull on a planetary free spool, do not power out or use the winch to lower yourself.

The second problem is that if you use a planetary winch hard the motor and the drum will heat up, once again the wire rope acts as a heat sink, where as the rope is an insulator. This is not that big of a deal except the amsteel or masterpull begins to break down at 150 degrees and totally fails at 300. When a planetary winch is used with even some vigor 150 degrees is exceeded.

These issues are greatly reduced in worm/spur gear winches so it is less of an issue and I have no problem recommending it then. With the planetaries you have to be extra carefull if you choose to use it on one and I would only consider it on the slower larger winches (M12000, M15000) which will produce less heat than the smaller ones. It can be used on the smaller ones and people who know more than me (like Bill Burke) do use it on them without problems. However, given the cost I don't think it is a great idea. Now if you like the safety advantage of the rope and don't mind replacing it when it gets melted I say go for it no matter what winch you have just be aware of the issue and take the necessary steps.

Ron

By Chris Browne on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 12:20 pm: Edit

haven't got the final shipped price (ie plan B) comparison of the masterpull v wire but the web sites suggest that the wire is a third the of the masterpull. now thats an easy decision.
Why do you think the 3/8s is worth going for?

By Ron on Tuesday, August 07, 2001 - 03:43 am: Edit

Stronger.