synthetic winch line

[Shoredreamer]

I bought some Amsteel Blue for a great price at West Marine, 100' 3/8" at $1.70/ft. Spliced it myself with fids, line covers and thimble from Southeast Overland.

I followed this video for splicing and it was pretty easy to do.

 

[rc51kid]

Here's something to put on your radar. Just because the spool will take 100ft of 3/8'' doesn't mean you need to put that on there. For my recent purchase I shorted my MM hydraulic by 20ft of line. I then purchased a 50ft extension if I ever need it. The thought behind it is with 20 less feet of line i'm already down one additional wrap towards the drum. Since I don't have actual numbers in front of me lets just say my initial pull would be 8500lbs instead of 6750lbs. That's if it was a short pull only off of the first wrap. Anything more and the advantage would be even greater.

I think another advantage is that the line on the drum takes a lot of abuse. It gets used every pull and is always in the elements. So its life will be shorter than the extention that mostly sits in the trunk. So if you have 120, on the drum it cost more to replace every few years than 85' on the drum and a 50' extension. Becouse the extention will last forever becouse it will rarely get used and stay out of the elements.

 

[half k cruiser]

I think another advantage is that the line on the drum takes a lot of abuse. It gets used every pull and is always in the elements. So its life will be shorter than the extention that mostly sits in the trunk. So if you have 120, on the drum it cost more to replace every few years than 85' on the drum and a 50' extension. Becouse the extention will last forever becouse it will rarely get used and stay out of the elements.

I agree. I often wish my neoprene bag that came with my MM winch would actually fit over the damn thing. That would be pretty handy for keeping the sun and road grime off of the line.

 

[Road Bull]

I agree. I often wish my neoprene bag that came with my MM winch would actually fit over the damn thing. That would be pretty handy for keeping the sun and road grime off of the line.

You could always make your own. I was thinking about a similar issue with my Warn M8000 / Addicted Offroad front bumper set up. I am running steel cable at the moment, but have been considering switching over to synthetic. I was trying to figure out how to protect the synthetic line because the majority of the body of the winch is exposed (the top and front). A standard winch cover would not fit because I already had to chop a fair amount of the front grille just to fit in the winch in place. So a standard cover is a no-go.

I can't take full credit for this as I saw it in a picture, but can't seem to find anyone who SELLS it. You don't need to cover the whole winch, but you can cover the line from UV exposure and to some extent exposure to the elements.

The idea is essentially a rectangular piece of material, could be neoprene, or whatever you wish. Cut a length that will comfortably envelop the spool of synthetic line. Get some in connective solution, Velcro, snaps, a run of magnets or whatever to connect the two ends. You could even sew in some side protection if you wanted to I suppose.

Anyway, this is what I might look into when I make the switch. Hahaha... Please forgive the crudely computer drawn example.