Fabio Villalobos
New member
I have a JK Wrangler Sahara 2012, what is the best wincht for it? specifically who many LBS winch?
The best winch for my Jeep?
- Thread starter Fabio Villalobos
- Start date
Gennybro
Active member
This issue has been brought up in the past, I was trying to drag up some old posts about it , but failed to do so, If someone knows how to bring those posts up about winches, let us know. Along with your opinion. It's been a while since I was contemplating getting a winch for a yj wrangler, but I believe I was leaning for the 8000 lb capicity winch.
Bounty__Hunter
Super Moderator
Minimum pull rating of 1.5 times the weight of the Jeep.
Gennybro
Active member
With that pull rateing , would you be able to hang the jeep vertically from an I beam and have the winch do it's job. If I was going to invest in a winch , I think I would like it to be able to do the spider man thing.
That may sound like a stupid question, but just checking.
That may sound like a stupid question, but just checking.
Dragon5126
New member
quite literally "The most expensive you can afford". Some say 1.5 times the weight of your jeep. But that rating rapidly decreases as you reel in cable. your jeep weighs just under 5000 pounds without people or gear, so covering for that at 1.5 times is going to put you at about 8500 pounds, and again you loose more and more capacity for every layer of cable that adds on to your drum as it pulls. So bare minimum would be 95OO just to be safe and even at that it can run into issues, such as pulling out of mud, over obstructions and so on, which is where the saying "the most expensive you can afford" comes in. Next with big winches comes power issues, is your battery big enough? better consider that... And unless you are looking at some real extreme high angle pulls you might want to go REAL expensive, and look at the Mile Marker hydraulic winches, which plumb into your power steering pump these are the beasts that are on the Military Hummers, and are extremely powerful (and expensive) and don't put a big load on your electrical system.
Mile Marker Industries | Winches, Recovery Gear, and Locking Hubs
here is their big civilian non commercial duty winch ( their commercial units are even bigger)
H-18K | Mile Marker Industries
Mile Marker Industries | Winches, Recovery Gear, and Locking Hubs
here is their big civilian non commercial duty winch ( their commercial units are even bigger)
H-18K | Mile Marker Industries
lefthand90
Member
This or Warn Winch, their Zeon's are military grade too!
9500 at least should safe, aside from load capacity and passengers, the way you got stuck matters most too!
xtremeadventurer
New member
This thread from another forum can help you with your issue:
Need to choose a winch for Sahara - Jeep Wrangler Forum
Need to choose a winch for Sahara - Jeep Wrangler Forum
Dragon5126
New member
many mfgs throw the term "military grade" around. however no electric winch is true military grade. the only ones that are, are power take off (pto) or hydraulic. The military spec specifically eliminates electric winches as they are at risk of being shorted out in salt water.
Your Jeep will weigh in approx 4500 lbs without any extra gear or people. If you round it off at 5000 lbs as a typical weight that you'll be wheeling with and double that you'll need to get a winch that has a 10K capacity. Theres several on the market but Warn is regarded as the industry standard and the Warn Zeon 10 is likely your best choice.
Amazon.com: Warn 89611 ZEON 10-S Winch with Synthetic Rope - 10000 lb. Capacity: Automotive
The deciding factor is how much do you want to spend.
frhrwa
New member
you don't need a 10,000 capable winch! over sell!!! 8000 is even more than you need.. its a proven fact. over many years that the 8000 will pull you out of anything, up a tree, over a cliff.. and if you need more, use the pully.. when you run your winch cable out, through a pulley, back to the jeep, you double it.. so.. depending on your ego, put the 10,000 lb one on, or better yet, put a 20,000 lb one on and show everyone up.. its only money
Dragon5126
New member
Not to argue, but personal experience has proven that to be pure nonsense Ive stalled 12000 Lb Warns over the years. That rating is only good for the first layer of cable on the drum and every layer after that it decreases substantially. Add your vehicle and cargo weight, and any thing that might be holding you back as well as blocking your forward movement such as mud, and you can suddenly be dealing with 30000 pounds or more. Your commentary is akin to telling some one its safe to hit the trail with two and a half gallons of fuel in the tank "You'll make it back" yeah on foot. You don't by low end recovery gear to make SURE you can get out you buy low end gear so you might get out. You buy the BEST you can get to make SURE you can get out. You never prepare to fail, you prepare to succeed.
Running cable from the winch to a winch point, through a snatch block and back to the vehicle does not double a winches pull strength. what i think he is referring to requires multiple snatch blocks to work successfully.
Truth be told, get the largest winch you want. I know ive maxed out 10k lb winches before wanting more. But be aware, most 10k+ winches require different mounting orientations that do not work well with jeep frames or bolt-on mounts.
I personally will never buy a warn winch ever again. I had a m8000 that would not work out of the box. Returned it and spent the money on a 9.5ti. I literally got 11 medium duty pulls out of it and the motor died somehow jamming the planetary gears (or vice versa) leaving the winch dead with 75 feet of cable out. warn insisted that I pull the cable off and pay to return to them. I told the service rep several times that to get the cable off, i would have to pull the planetary housing to free spool the drum to get the cable off. Service rep said that was fine as long as i get the cable off. Did so, paid shipping to send the winch to warn. Almost a month later I get a call from warn saying they won't honor the life time warranty since I took the planetary housing off (broken case seal) which they told me to do.
Bought a used Smitty Built 10k lb winch for $100. 7 years and more pulls than I can count, still working flawless and the 9.5ti is still sitting under my workbench.
Truth be told, get the largest winch you want. I know ive maxed out 10k lb winches before wanting more. But be aware, most 10k+ winches require different mounting orientations that do not work well with jeep frames or bolt-on mounts.
I personally will never buy a warn winch ever again. I had a m8000 that would not work out of the box. Returned it and spent the money on a 9.5ti. I literally got 11 medium duty pulls out of it and the motor died somehow jamming the planetary gears (or vice versa) leaving the winch dead with 75 feet of cable out. warn insisted that I pull the cable off and pay to return to them. I told the service rep several times that to get the cable off, i would have to pull the planetary housing to free spool the drum to get the cable off. Service rep said that was fine as long as i get the cable off. Did so, paid shipping to send the winch to warn. Almost a month later I get a call from warn saying they won't honor the life time warranty since I took the planetary housing off (broken case seal) which they told me to do.
Bought a used Smitty Built 10k lb winch for $100. 7 years and more pulls than I can count, still working flawless and the 9.5ti is still sitting under my workbench.
Dragon5126
New member
Every time you add a pulley into the loop you DO multiply the pull strength this is simple applied physics. For every doubling of pull (from vehicle to hookup point) you double the strength so one loop turns 10K to 20K bring it back to the anchor point and back to the vehicle again ( two more lengths) brings the power up to 40 K... this is 6th grade physical science class material HOWEVER, the snatch blocks, and the diameter of the pulleys involved put excessive amount of wear and tear on the cables due to the bend they put on the cable, They also substantially reduce the amount of cable you have available to do a pull, so it is an extremely self limiting proposition. This is a very basic application of a Block and tackle, which works fine on extremely flexible cordage like rope, but not steel cable and it is too abrasive for the synthetic cable that is replacing steel that is used on winches
Dragon5126
New member
You are close. The confusion comes in on which end you are looking at it from Every time you double the number of lines from the PULL SOURCE (in this case the winch), you halve the weight felt at the pull point. example if a single line pull is drawing 10000 pounds, doubling it cuts it to 5000 pounds (that is 5000 per leg of the line) double it again and the pull is reduced to 2500, and again it puts 2500 pounds on each loop of the line so 1 run is the full 10000 2 runs is 1/2 or 5000. 4 runs is 2500 pounds 8 runs would bring it to 1250, so on and so forth. This is the simple rule of block and tackles it also increases the strength of the cable, figuratively speaking, since your load is distributed across the multiple runs of the cable, HOWEVER in the real world you don't gain a full multiplication factor on the cable as it is strained as it wraps around the pulley. so you are still limited by the strength of the cable. at its weakest point: on the bend around the pulley. Now doubling the pulleys Wont double the net pull strength, One pulley will adding 2 will increase it by 150% adding 3 will increase it by 200%. A 100% increase cuts the weight on the winch in half 150% cuts it by two thirds and adding 3 cuts it by three quarters. ( I had to draw this out for myself to keep it straight) for every multiple of 2, the free end of the cable has to return to the vehicle ( 1/2, 1/4, 1/6 and so on...)... there are times I have to remind myself I LOVED physics....
the easiest way to remember it is divide the weight by the number of runs, if there are three lines back and forth, divide the weight by 3, its not the pulleys, the lines back and forth that they supply. (would have been easier if I said that first but what fun would that have been?)
Last edited:
Bounty__Hunter
Super Moderator
I run a Warn 8274 that was manufactured in 1975. Paid $100 for it off an old mud truck. Went through it and it runs very well. Can still get parts for the classic beast.
I run 150' of synthetic rope, could probably fir 200' if necessary. Super fast no-load line speed means you really need your wits about you when playing winch ***** for your group. Inexperience could get a person seriously hurt.
I run 150' of synthetic rope, could probably fir 200' if necessary. Super fast no-load line speed means you really need your wits about you when playing winch ***** for your group. Inexperience could get a person seriously hurt.
Dragon5126
New member
the warn winch I miss And would love to have on my GC's is the old side winder. because of the large diameter drum there wasn't as much of an issue with keeping the cable spooled straight, and it didn't loose as much strength per layer. Plus its mount was an engine skidplate... If you remember the ad campaign they had with a full sized blazer hanging from a tree, that was the winch.
