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Trailer winches?

urjb

Red Skull Member
Joined
May 24, 2020
Member Number
1316
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67
Loc
Pollock Pines, CA
Searched.. no luck.

I need a new winch on my car trailer.. old winch will be cut off and mounting options are pretty much all on the table. Just need to pull rolling loads once in awhile.

I’ve considered:
China winch.. probably from TSC traveler brand

Portable like a pulls-all or whatever, or drill powered.. these have very limited capacity but have benefits .

Larger atv/utv winch. Probably go with a Warn.

Find a used Warn winch.

What’s everyone doing? Not a fan of Smitty, or HF. Tho I realize they’d probably be more than adequate.

I’d prefer cable, but if I got one with a rope I could save the rope for something else and put a 50’ cable on.
 
What's on it now weight wise?

And I know first reply and I'm gonna throw out HF Badlands, they work decent, and your already talking China or alternative.
And they have them all through the weight spectrum.

Edit

Used is a great option I missed that
 
Current winch is an old sidewinder.. capacity at least 8k

I pulled plenty with a come a long, so experience says anything over 4K would work.
 
a 4500-5k with snatch block would be cheepish. i found a shit ton of brands on amazon a little while back so the skys the limit.
 
I have a receiver tube welded on the front of the trailer.

This was a cheap winch of CL, had no controls, Made my own.

Used a set of 25ft jumper cables to run to the battery on the tow vehicle.

It is only like an 8k winch. I have only needed a snatch block like once dragging a truck with locked up brakes.

Due for a new cable though. I have used it like this, or in the hitch of the truck for at least 10 years.

I take it off the trailer and don't leave it in the weather when I can. It has been a life saver.

Can't count how many times I have had to use a come a long or similar method and hurt my back doing it.

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How the do you hurt your back with a come along? Your arm I can see. But your back? :lmao:
 
My brother in law gave me a harbor freight badlands 9500# winch for my trailer. I've used it a few times for hauling dead vehicles on and letting them off with some control. I think he picked it up when it was on sale for closer to $300.

Seems of similar quality to the superwinch I have on my buggy. It's no Warn, but for the price it gets it done.
 
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M12 on my equipment trailer, M8 on the car haulers.

Had an old HF 9500, but it got hot in a hurry.
 
arse_sidewards said:
How the do you hurt your back with a come along? Your arm I can see. But your back? :lmao:
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And done it so many times.

One time I was supposed to haul this early bronco for a "friend" No big deal. It was just me and I think the kids rode along. Anyway we get there. The guy is not there.
After screwing around he says hey, it is parked behind the barn. We go find it.

This thing has not been moved in 20 years at least.

First tried to drag it out with the pickup and trailer. No go, all 4 brakes locked.

Okay, here we go. Drag an EB up the ramps with 4 locked tires. Come a long, No cheater pipe. Feet against the rail on the trailer, pulling on the come along with all I got. Repeatedly, moving the EB inch at a time.

Halfway up the ramps the front tires finally broke loose and kind of rolled. That was like heaven.

At that point we chained it up and drug it around the guys yard until the rear brakes broke loose.

That was probably the worst.
 
Smitty on mine. I think I picked it up right before they stopped being Uber cheap.
 
I have a Bulldog on mine that came off a Jeep I sold... 9k Synthetic run off the battery for the tilt-bed.
 
posford said:
Like a Hickey Sidewinder? Thats sorta neat
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neat, yes I guess.. if a guy has the right ruck for it. I saved this winch for 20 years just so I could put it on a trailer. Made it all happen, and the thing has shown me that its age is not conducive to being functional when I need it to be. found some pics.. old Jeep in 2000, always had so much rigging hanging off the cow-catcher bumper that there's no good pics of the winch, and when I put it on the trailer in early 2017.

Its not broken, but its headed to scrap. I pretty sure I tried to give others away and had no takers.

I think I've settled on a either a TSC or HF winch. have both stores locally and will pull the trigger after the mounting is done.
 

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urjb said:
neat, yes I guess.. if a guy has the right ruck for it. I saved this winch for 20 years just so I could put it on a trailer. Made it all happen, and the thing has shown me that its age is not conducive to being functional when I need it to be. found some pics.. old Jeep in 2000, always had so much rigging hanging off the cow-catcher bumper that there's no good pics of the winch, and when I put it on the trailer in early 2017.

Its not broken, but its headed to scrap. I pretty sure I tried to give others away and had no takers.

I think I've settled on a either a TSC or HF winch. have both stores locally and will pull the trigger after the mounting is done.
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Its a motor, some wires, and solenoids.

I remember about 10 years ago some squarebody guys all had hardons for Hickey Sidewinders. One was the guy with the 8.1 swapped 78, was super popular in its time.

Shame to see it go for scrap, but you're right, its neat, and thats about it. Too bad you're on the other side of the country.
 
I think I have a tractor supply winch on my trailer.
I had a 2500 HF one, but it didnt have enough balls to drag a lot of fullsize trucks.
A 8-9k winch always works and keep all the cable on it because you never know how far away that treasure is in the woods you're trying to get.
 
welndmn said:
A 8-9k winch always works and keep all the cable on it because you never know how far away that treasure is in the woods you're trying to get.
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vs. use 50’ of cable to maximize pulling power and help manage the fact that the cable always seems to build on one spot of the spool..

If it was a long ways out, I’d probably use the truck winch.. so there’s that
 
Put a receiver hitch on my goose. HF 12k (got it on sale, why not) sits in the barn out of the weather til I need it and toss it in the reciever. Works great. Pulled all kinds of stuff up on the trailer, rolling and not.

Keep thinking of building a winch box on the trailer so it can just stay on board, but never get around to that. Add a battery, solar panel, charge controller and it will stay self contained.
 
I too have a HF 12K winch mounted on a receiver mount. I added a receiver onto my trailer. I also wired an anderson plug on the trailer battery AND have jumper cables with anderson plug on it so I can use on any truck with receiver hitch if needed. Sits in my shop out of weather before needing it as well
 
+ whatever on weld a receiver tube on the front of the trailer. We use a 12k tractor supply winch.
 
I had a smitty 8k from when they first came out, it finally died this year and I replaced it with a HF 12k (not the apex). Used a coupon and it was around 300 bucks. Receiver tube and anderson connectors on each trailer.

Duane
 
I’ve got a Warn M 12000 that I need to sell if you are going to go Warn. Has controller and fair lead even! I’m down in Sac so I could even deliver it, $900.
 
TTMotorsports said:
Screenshot_20230803-205048.png
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Hard to beat this for the price.

I'd go minimum 8k for a trailer. I had a 5k mounted on a receiver plus one of these double receiver things for my 16' hauler. It'd work, but I'd have to use a snatch block to pull even a fully rolling sedan on to it. Single pull would just stall out. :shaking:

1691156964054.png



Trailer I just bought has the old, shittier badlands version on it. It'll work fine, but it's slooooow. I'm probably going to swap in the new spare Apex I have sitting on the shelf just because.
 
bgaidan said:
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I have this double hitch thing. I find that usually the trailer jack is in the way if you are going to use a winch mounted this far back, so keep that in mind.

But it did work. I had an enclosed trailer. We cut a 4" hole in the nose. Used the winch on this hitch. had to unbolt the trailer jack and take it off, but it worked. Dark and cold. was nice to get back on the road.
 
Tiha said:
I have this double hitch thing. I find that usually the trailer jack is in the way if you are going to use a winch mounted this far back, so keep that in mind.

But it did work. I had an enclosed trailer. We cut a 4" hole in the nose. Used the winch on this hitch. had to unbolt the trailer jack and take it off, but it worked. Dark and cold. was nice to get back on the road.
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My 7k has a folding/tilting jack so no problem there. But I could see it being a problem if you have a fixed drop leg jack. A short piece of chain and a snatch block connected to one of the side tiedowns or stake pockets would be helpful to redirect the line a foot or so off center. Might just need to stop halfway through to re-spool when the line gets all bunched up on one side. :laughing:
 
bgaidan said:
My 7k has a folding/tilting jack so no problem there. But I could see it being a problem if you have a fixed drop leg jack. A short piece of chain and a snatch block connected to one of the side tiedowns or stake pockets would be helpful to redirect the line a foot or so off center. Might just need to stop halfway through to re-spool when the line gets all bunched up on one side. :laughing:
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Tow trucks have some just like that, ~4’ chain lead and slip hook off a small block. Can run a second right in front of the winch to redirect to the middle of the drum.
 
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