ramsey winch

[Skyco]

It would be interesting to hear what kind of info you get in a call to Ramsey...they sure don't bother to answer their emails I can tell you

Had a brand new 8500 lb Ramsey on my truck, the dogs on the cable spool sheared off the first time I used it...you'd think they'd engineer it to stall before it could do that. Never could get them to respond to emailed questions about the winch. The local Northern Tool where I bought it replaced the winch. I've been leary of it doing that again with the new one every time I load it hard..

Here is the story- I was using it to pull on a stump...when it broke it was very violent, shook the truck so hard the hood slammed on my arm which was resting on the fender while I operated the winch control..talk about a big bruise, I was very lucky it didn't break my arm What bothered me though is IF I had been winching my truck, say, up a steep hill the truck would have got loose and could have been totalled or killed someone. Repeated emails to Ramsey about this failure went unanswered. They are lucky I'm not the suing type as I'm sure I could have nailed them on my injury.

 

[sandman2234]

I never had any trouble contacting Ramsey, but all of my calls were "purchasing", not service oriented. Hopefully a phone call will straighten things out by getting the diagram you need and any parts also.
David from jax

 

[bjcsc]

Skyco: You have to be more careful when winching. If the hood slammed on your arm, you were right next to the truck and inline with the cable - never a good idea. If the cable breaks (and they do) or lets go of the shackle or the load under tension, it will be coming your way fast! If you're going to winch near capacity, it's a good idea to throw a heavy blanket or something similar over the cable at about the halfway point. Be careful and always think "how could this kill me if it fails"...

 

[Skyco]

Skyco: You have to be more careful when winching. If the hood slammed on your arm, you were right next to the truck and inline with the cable - never a good idea. If the cable breaks (and they do) or lets go of the shackle or the load under tension, it will be coming your way fast! If you're going to winch near capacity, it's a good idea to throw a heavy blanket or something similar over the cable at about the halfway point. Be careful and always think "how could this kill me if it fails"...

You are right of course generally
In this case I was standing next to the left front fender about midway back between the front of the truck and the windshield, the winch cable was all of 6 ft long attached to the stump. What bothers me too was that being that far up on the wrap of the spool, it being almost full, the pull was way less than the ultimate pull on a cable it was capable of. I'm guessing that particular winch was defective right out of the box. So much for quality control.
The replacement has held up fine although I've snapped 2 of the 5/16 cables with it! It now holds 3/8 cable. BTW when one of those snapped it sounded like a rifle shot but fortunately dropped on the spot rather than flying back into the truck

 

[ovrszd]

My BIL has a Ramsey on his Jeep. It broke just like you described, the first time he used it. The replacement has worked fine and I've saw him stall the winch several times without additional failure.

After breaking a couple steel cables I switched to synthetic rope for additional safety. As was said earlier, always ask yourself what the risks are when pulling.

Sorry for the hijack. Bones,,, good job on that article. That was very interesting being the Jeep freak I am.