Mile Marker winch done

[mainiac]

I finally finished my winch mount. Still waiting for winter to set into Maine. There is not much frost in the ground and we have had enough rain to make the ground to soft for the land owner to let me on to start cutting. I did hook it up and pulled my pickup around a little. It is going to work great.

As far as the hydraulic pressures are concerned. I have found that the winch works fine and when it loads up to a stall, the relief valve will open and I definately know when that happens. Engine speed does affect the speed of the winch. The winch is a two speed winch as well.

I feel this is a good alternative for a small tractor compared to a logging winch at $2500plus. I have a B7500 Kubota(21hp@engine,17hp@PTO). I have about $1100 into this project and that does include the new winch. I would have had some more if I had to buy all the steel, but I cleaned out some of my scrap pile for this.

The only thing different I would do is to use square stock instead of the channel iron.

A good sand blasting and paint will happen this coming sommer as I do not have a heated garage and wifey would shoot me if I did it in the cellar and stink up the house.

Can't wait to really try it.

 

[RedRocker]

Looks good, I may end up doing something like that myself. What did the winch cost you and what model is it?

 

[mainiac]

It was $755 with the valve including shipping. I got it from winchesplus.com. The guy I delt with(can't remember his name) was a big help and said that there are many of these mounted on tractors using tractor hydraulics.

I have seen some other winch mounts on tractors on this web site as well as forestryforum.com that I like as well, but I feel I need a bigger tractor to do them. One guy has an electric winch mounted to his FEL which is really cool. Could see that being handy.

It is the 10500lb winch with out the electronics on the winch (70 series if I remember correctly).

 

[schmism]

It is the 10500lb winch with out the electronics on the winch (70 series if I remember correctly).

a 10K winch is HUGE! you could likey find one in the 5-8K range for much cheeper and still work fine. The issue is removing 100' of the 150' of cable. if your on the top 4th or 5th wrap your realy lost a lot of pulling power. Its best (especailly for something like this) to re-swage the end of the 100' cable you cut off and carry it with you if you really need to reach WAY out to grab something.

Remember to keep 3 wraps on the drum as a min.

Im surprised that this project set you back that much... did you have to by the spool for the "rear remote" also? or did you already have it?

 

[mainiac]

I had to buy the valve $120 and then the hoses. 4 total at a cost of $240! I was shocked and P.O.'d. Went in to have the local shop make them up and I figured in the 100-125 dollar range. Shop never indicated that it was going to be over 2 bills. Called around the area after buying these to see if I was being price gouged and the general feeling was no.

If I had used more hard pipe I might have gotten away cheaper, but I used flex hose with swival 90's and the quick couplers to tap into my tractor was $50 alone. The shops I talked with all said that every time they reorder fittings, they are costing more and more. Almost doubled in a year is what they said.

As far as the size of the winch, yes I could have gotten a 9500lb winch for $25 cheaper and as far as I could find, 9500lb MM was the smallest hydrothey made.
There was other makes, but required more gpm's than 4. MM just seemed like the closest specs I could come up with to meet what my tractor works at.

I did have a hydro winch given to me if I could use it. I priced out a hydro system to run off the PTO and I quickly hit $950 using new parts and that was just what I could think (rough list) of when pricing. Told the shop to forget it when they hit $950.

I don't have easy access to a hydro salvage yard to piece meal used parts.

 

[Deerlope]

You have a good idea going there but a few other things to consider are that you will probably hook the choker back a foot or so on the log. Will this allow the log to hit the winch. Also if you can find a way to mount the Fairlead about 10" from the winch it will act almost like a level wind. Also if you bought your winch from winchsplus.com you probably talked to Dave, a very knowledge man.

 

[mainiac]

Deerlope,

I saw that on one of your previous postings and I scratched my head for a long time trying to figure a way to do it. It just gets me back to needing a bigger tractor.

I planned this to put as little weight onto the 3ph as possilbe as to maximize the lift at the log instead of on equipment. I am estimating the weight of what I built at 125lbs and if I remember the spec numbers on my 3ph, that is about 1/7th of the lift.

I do not plan on using the winch cable for skidding, just to pull the logs to the tractor. then I will rehitch the chains to grab hooks on the receiver the I welded there. and use the low part as a butt plate. I am thinking of adding a 'D' ring or something like that so that I can rig a 2 point pull on the bigger logs. I have alot of red maple to haul.

I like everyones input. I helps me think about things that I may have forgotten.

And yes it was Dave I talked with. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Deerlope]

We learn from each other by kicking ideas around.

 

[patrick_g]

I am not all that experienced in dragging logs but you aren't going to actually use the snatch block as mounted are you? I mean it would surely pull the tractor over backwards. I assume it is a convenient way to haul it.

I couldn't be sure from the pix but isn't the entry point for the cable (in the middle of the fairlead rollers) above the center of the rear axle? So if you ran the cable (without the snatch block) to a log and took up a good strain wouldn't it try to pull the front wheels up off the ground and rotate the tractor around its rear axle and dump you upside down if you didn't shut down? I'm sure you would shut down before disaster struck but why not mount the winch lower?

I'd be concerned that I would lose positive steering control while dragging a heavy log.

Pat

 

[K7147]

It was $755 with the valve including shipping. I got it from winchesplus.com. The guy I delt with(can't remember his name) was a big help and said that there are many of these mounted on tractors using tractor hydraulics.

I have seen some other winch mounts on tractors on this web site as well as forestryforum.com that I like as well, but I feel I need a bigger tractor to do them. One guy has an electric winch mounted to his FEL which is really cool. Could see that being handy.

It is the 10500lb winch with out the electronics on the winch (70 series if I remember correctly).

Maniac!

I’m probably the one with the electric winch on the FEL. You did a nice job and I think YOUR winch is COOL!

Ken