Tips and guidance from a certified 4wd Instructor. (1 Viewer)

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krzyabncanuck

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This is a place where as a I4WDTC person i will try to put out safety tips and other stuff related to the 4wd industry and off roading.

It was brought to my attention a long time ago actually about how little people sometimes know about their equipment. I was just as bad about that years ago. I just assumed cause stuff was there it was good to go. That is not always the thing though, as we will see.

I am by no means a total SME on this and i am constantly learning all the latest tips and techniques for this type of stuff. is that to say i know all the latest stuff out there ? Heck no. But i will look into stuff for you.

I am not going to try to sell you on anything out there brand wise. Will i help guide you in the right direction by pointing things out ? yes i will, but it is up to you to make sure you are getting something that you are happy with. I am not endorsed by any company out there so i do not make a dime pointing out different things from different companies.

My main mentor is Bill Burke. Some of you all have heard of him and others know him. You then know he knows a bit of stuff then and has been doing this for decades now.

I myself have been into the 4wd stuff for about 3 decades now.

I will not cover things like tires here and such stuff like that as chances are good i do not know what works best in your terrain and other folks will in your location.

Most stuff i am going to cover here is about safety and not getting people killed or maimed.
 
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First thing i would like to cover is a bumper.

This bumper is mostly for the 80 series crowd. It is from ARB. I am going to cover this first as it is a huge safety thing in my eyes from a recovery POV.

When you get a front bumper from ARB it tells you to retain and reuse the factory recovery points on your front end. There is a reason for that. Those little holes in that thin metal where you can hang a screw pin bow shackle are just that. Thin little pieces of metal. ARB will tell you that it was not designed or even rated to be used for a winch or strap recovery . It was not rated from the factory that way. Infact if you notice that the newer ones do not even come with that on the front end anymore. That is for safety that they took them off. I do not know if someone was hurt or killed because of it, but i do know from talking to Corporate in person that they flat out said not to use them for winching or yanking of your vehicle.

This is from their page and it specifically says they are towing points not recovery points. http://store.arbusa.com/ARB-Deluxe-...es-90-97-Lexus-LX450-96-97-3411050-P3280.aspx

This is the email i got in reply to my asking again about this.

Good morning folks. I have a question for you about your front bumper for the 80 series Land Cruiser.


Are your tow points an acceptable place for self recovery ? They seem kind of thin for that. Or do you recommend the factory points on the frame to be used for a winching point / hooking up a strap for recovery if my truck was stuck with me not having the winch yet on my bumper.


Thanks

Darin

profile_mask2.png

ARB Tech <tech@arbusa.com>
3:35 PM (2 hours ago)
cleardot.gif


to me
cleardot.gif

Hi Darin-
The eyes on your 80 series bumper are engineered as tow points and not recovery points. In your case it would be best to use the factory recovery points for vehicle recovery.

Thanks
ARB Tech Support



Now lets cover what you could use them for safely.

You can put a screw pin bow shackle in them along with your high lift jack and do a lift and throw with it. You can also use a soft shackle to do the same thing instead of a metal bow shackle.I will cover a high lift and its many uses later on in another post another day. I will cover the soft shackle and screw pin bow shackle later also. There are more uses for the bumper but i am just coming at it from a safety POV.

Now. learning this i was a little put off. I had to talk directly to Corp ARB myself to find out for sure. I then kinda pissed them off asking why they did it that way and put peoples lives at stake. they did say in their instructions to re use the factory points and then i asked them why even buy their bumper, but that is neither here nor there. They were some good folks just not too friendly to me afterward. Granted i can piss off a lot of people now a days and have gotten really good at it. I then went on a bit about there lift kits and the issues i was having with their shocks but that is for a different day.

So, for the safety of others and yourself please use the ARB bumpers correctly.

if you have any questions or comments please feel free to ask.

Edit.

I need to put this out there before someone looses their mind.

ARB bumpers are good bumpers and do exactly what they are designed to do, and that is hold a winch / lights / CB antenna , and protect the front of your vehicle. We as MEN do not like to read instructions. Or we have some shop out there mount it for us and they keep the instructions or put them in your center console to never be seen again. It is up to the end user to know / understand what the bumper was built / designed for and what it is capable of.

Ironman bumpers come the same way with no tabs for hooking onto and you are supposed to again use your recovery points from the factory.
 
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I had some recovery lugs welded to mine. Always wondered why they did not provide proper recovery points.
 
If I was to do that I would go thru the bumper and to the frame. That in my mind would be the strongest. That would be my recommendation.
 
Subscribed. Glad you're doing this.

John
 
Subscribed, I'm an accredited 4WD instructor from Australia, I learn a lot from other instructors to help my students. Looking forward to your posts.

Simon

You another I4WDTC Instructor ?

Please feel free to add what you find over there that works / does not work as that is how i learn also.
 
Subbed, We are along for the ride as well.

~Jeff
Heck. I get most of my supplies from you guys. Feel free when I talk about soft shackles to educate them even further about how you make them. I will cover that here soon.
 
For today i will talk about winches.

For the most part any working winch is a good winch out in the woods / dessert. In this post i am going to cover the workings of a winch. This will be covered in a few posts as i have time to do this stuff. So do not be surprised when you see it again plenty of times down the thread.

There are 3 main types of winches. Drives.

PTO,
Hydraulic
Electric : Permanent magnet vs Series wound
a: planetary gear
b: Worm Gear
c: Spur gear

Spur gear winches are good at fast line speeds but lack the ability to hold loads safely . They need a brake.

Worm gear winches are usually not found on your typical off road vehicle. They are more suited for industrial applications. they are found on alot of roll backs wreckers.

Planetary gear winches are a hybrid of both spur and worm gear ones. They are more compact which is great for us, and they perform about in the middle of spur and worm gear. the biggest downfall is where the brakes are located at. In the Drum.

Planetary winches are what i really want to cover right now as that is what most of us use out there.

Lets talk a bit about the brake as it is a very important piece of the winch. Most planetary winch brakes are in the drum except for one company out there. Why do we need to worry about the brake you ask ? Well if you are running steel line you need not worry so much. If you are like me though running this new rope lines then you need to know this. Everytime you power out your winch line you are over riding the brake. So what you say. The longer the brake is working the hotter your drum is getting heating up that nice pretty line you have on there. yes it came with a heat guard but it can last only so long. The best thing for you to do is free spool the winch line out. it goes out faster and you are not working your brake at all. Once you hook up the line then take if off of free spool and wind it back in.

Now lets talk a bit about line speed of your winch and where it is at.

Lets say you have a 9500lbs winch and you have 125 feet of line but you are only 25 feet from your tree you are using. If you put it out only 25+ feet are you getting in your power zone you need for a really stuck truck ? ( Not doing a stuck assesment at this time )

No you are not. Not even close. Your power is one the first wrap of the drum. Depending on your line you are using will dictate how far that is in feet before you start the second wrap. For most drums it is about 10-15 feet. In other words you need to have your line almost all the way out for you to be able to get 100% pulling power from your winch. With a 125 foot line that means you are going to need to go out just past 100 feet to get to it. That is why i have a 80 foot or less line on mine now with a winch extension line or 2.

On a later day i might explain how you could take all your line out and still pull just that 25 feet at max line pull.

I am not going to teach you everything here so then you will not want to learn from someone like me or Woody that can teach you.

BLUF. ( Bottom line up front ). Keep safe working your winch and do not overheat it and melt your rope cable.

I will cover later why this new rope is way better for all around out there to use.
 
I enjoy teaching folks. I am only putting out a bit of information though about this stuff to try to encourage folks to take a class thru one of the folks here on this forum and learn more. I know Woody has the Midwest covered. The one guy that posted in Australia and me in the Southeast. I am sure there are more folks on here that are also instructor's. I encourage folks to learn more about this stuff in a classroom setting prior to needing to use it in the sticks. I am not even touching the tip of the iceberg.
 
Next up lets talk a bit about winch lines.

A lot of folks on here are old school 4wd folks and it is hard to change. I admit that myself but for safety please consider this.

Most of us still have winches with steel line on them. We know what happens when something lets go. There is a huge kill / injury zone around it while it is in use.Reason behind that is when you have that wire taught it is stretched and it stores energy inside it. Once something breaks then it releases all that energy in a whipping feature and you have no clue where it is going to go. Things that could cause that are numerous. From a bumper to a weak link somewhere in the pull.

Now lets talk about synthetic ropes.

There are a few different safety things to talk about here. Number one when something lets go the rope will not whip like a cable. It will drop. That is it. Just drops. means nothing flying thru the air with the greatest of ease taking someone out. They also do not have burrs or wire splinters to cut your hand. Can they take in sand spurs that might hurt a bit ? Yes they will so you still need to wear gloves and handle the rope properly still.

Strength. The synthetic rope has a 30-90% higher breaking strength that your steel wire.

Yes it is more expensive, but what is your life or an innocent bystanders life worth ?

There are more great things to synthetic rope but i am just trying to cover for a safety POV. I know we have a really good company that supports Mud that sells really good ones. Please contact them to find out even more, or take a winch course / 4wd course to actually see what it can actually do.

Thanks for reading this.
 
What types of recovery points do you recommend, other than factory recovery points?

Would this be an appropriate recovery point?
http://smile.amazon.com/Erickson-59...d=1434125015&sr=8-1&keywords=weld-on%20d-ring

What about this style? The factory 60 front recovery point is similar to this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/10000-lb-capacity-tow-hook-kit-67497.html
Very good questions both.

The first one has a 6333 lbs WLL. Working Load Limit. That is what it is rated safe to. Also need to factor in someone's welding skills. For me I would not recommend hooking up to something like that unless I knew for sure that it was a competent welder. Even then we are pushing that limit with most of our rigs.

Now the second one is the best for our use. It came on both 40 / 60 series and I would hook to one any day as long as the correct bolts are used. If you notice it also has a keeper on it which is preferred out there.

For me as an instructor I would suggest the second one every time. I also have them on my trucks.

I do have that first one on my trailer for tie down but not for recovery.

HTH you and others.
 
Also.

The best points you want to hook to are bolted directly to the frame. A lot of the folks that build bumpers now actually do have a solid 1 piece of thick steel that goes all the way back thru the bumper bolted to the frame so you do not need to guess how competent the welder was. It does get welded thru the bumper but bolts directly to the frame horn itself.
 
The first one has a 6333 lbs WLL. Working Load Limit. That is what it is rated safe to. Also need to factor in someone's welding skills. For me I would not recommend hooking up to something like that unless I knew for sure that it was a competent welder. Even then we are pushing that limit with most of our rigs.

Good call, I didn't even think to look at the WLL. I went back to double-check my d-rings and I've got the 4000lb WLL 1/2" d-rings. I'll make sure to not use them as recovery points from here on out.

Now the second one is the best for our use. It came on both 40 / 60 series and I would hook to one any day as long as the correct bolts are used. If you notice it also has a keeper on it which is preferred out there.

10-4. I've had people question my use of those hooks, so I'm glad that they're good to go.



As another question, what do you think of using a pintle hitch as a recovery point? There have been many times I've used a strap, through a d-ring, then had the d-ring in the pintle hitch, locked.

Asking so that I can learn to look out for in the field, so thank you :cheers:
 
Good call, I didn't even think to look at the WLL. I went back to double-check my d-rings and I've got the 4000lb WLL 1/2" d-rings. I'll make sure to not use them as recovery points from here on out.



10-4. I've had people question my use of those hooks, so I'm glad that they're good to go.



As another question, what do you think of using a pintle hitch as a recovery point? There have been many times I've used a strap, through a d-ring, then had the d-ring in the pintle hitch, locked.

Asking so that I can learn to look out for in the field, so thank you :cheers:
As for your screw pin bow shackles I would recommend 3/4 inch size. That is not measured at the screw pin but in the apex of the loop. They are more designed for our applications. You called it a d ring, same thing.

There are mixed reviews in our field about the second part. But we all agree not using just a loop put in the 2 inch receiver opening with the pin thru the loop is good. Our biggest issue with the type that opens is it is not made to have stress like that put on it via a recovery but just made for towing. It might gradually open itself up from the pulling stress. Now if you put a closed loop in there it would be the best scenario. Kind that comes on the military trailers with that closed loop.

Out in the brush sometimes you have to do unorthodox stuff to make it back. More prepared you go out the better chances of coming back safe. My goal is to try to teach people here the safe way.

There are numerous ways to skin a cat, we just want to make sure it does not bite back in the process.
 
First thing i would like to cover is a bumper.

This bumper is mostly for the 80 series crowd. It is from ARB. I am going to cover this first as it is a huge safety thing in my eyes from a recovery POV.

When you get a front bumper from ARB it tells you to retain and reuse the factory recovery points on your front end. There is a reason for that. Those little holes in that thin metal where you can hang a screw pin bow shackle are just that. Thin little pieces of metal. ARB will tell you that it was not designed or even rated to be used for a winch or strap recovery . It was not rated from the factory that way. Infact if you notice that the newer ones do not even come with that on the front end anymore. That is for safety that they took them off. I do not know if someone was hurt or killed because of it, but i do know from talking to Corporate in person that they flat out said not to use them for winching or yanking of your vehicle.

This is from their page and it specifically says they are towing points not recovery points. http://store.arbusa.com/ARB-Deluxe-...es-90-97-Lexus-LX450-96-97-3411050-P3280.aspx

This is the email i got in reply to my asking again about this.

Good morning folks. I have a question for you about your front bumper for the 80 series Land Cruiser.


Are your tow points an acceptable place for self recovery ? They seem kind of thin for that. Or do you recommend the factory points on the frame to be used for a winching point / hooking up a strap for recovery if my truck was stuck with me not having the winch yet on my bumper.


Thanks

Darin

profile_mask2.png

ARB Tech <tech@arbusa.com>
3:35 PM (2 hours ago)
cleardot.gif


to me
cleardot.gif

Hi Darin-
The eyes on your 80 series bumper are engineered as tow points and not recovery points. In your case it would be best to use the factory recovery points for vehicle recovery.

Thanks
ARB Tech Support



Now lets cover what you could use them for safely.

You can put a screw pin bow shackle in them along with your high lift jack and do a lift and throw with it. You can also use a soft shackle to do the same thing instead of a metal bow shackle.I will cover a high lift and its many uses later on in another post another day. I will cover the soft shackle and screw pin bow shackle later also. There are more uses for the bumper but i am just coming at it from a safety POV.

Now. learning this i was a little put off. I had to talk directly to Corp ARB myself to find out for sure. I then kinda pissed them off asking why they did it that way and put peoples lives at stake. they did say in their instructions to re use the factory points and then i asked them why even buy their bumper, but that is neither here nor there. They were some good folks just not too friendly to me afterward. Granted i can piss off a lot of people now a days and have gotten really good at it. I then went on a bit about there lift kits and the issues i was having with their shocks but that is for a different day.

So, for the safety of others and yourself please use the ARB bumpers correctly.

if you have any questions or comments please feel free to ask.

Edit.

I need to put this out there before someone looses their mind.

ARB bumpers are good bumpers and do exactly what they are designed to do, and that is hold a winch / lights / CB antenna , and protect the front of your vehicle. We as MEN do not like to read instructions. Or we have some shop out there mount it for us and they keep the instructions or put them in your center console to never be seen again. It is up to the end user to know / understand what the bumper was built / designed for and what it is capable of.

Ironman bumpers come the same way with no tabs for hooking onto and you are supposed to again use your recovery points from the factory.

So if I don't have the factory recovery points with my ARB, where is the best course of action to pull me out of the mud? Is a sling on the bumper tubes safe?
 

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