how to make 3 point pto logging winch

[agh]

some one has likely made a 3 pt pto winch using a 8000lb or larger drum wrecker type winch. I saw just the winch for $660.00 on a wrecker web site. would require adapting tractor pto shaft to a one inch keyed shaft which drive the winch. I have a lot of hurricane hardwoods down which i want to pull up for bandsaw mill since can't get any interest in commercial sale. I would appreciate anyone thoughts on pro/cons of this type winch setup. The farmi and others are $3-4000. I believe a homemade winch could perform adequately for a small weekend project logging. thanks agh

 

[RonMar]

Is it worth the effort for a weekend logging project? How big is your tractor and how are you going to hold the tractor in place against the pull of the winch? You obviously need the engine running for the PTO so you can't leave it in gear. Most tractors I have dealt with over the years, didn't have that good a brakes to begin with. If it is 4X4, you probably don't have brakes on the front wheels so there goes a good precentage of your available traction force. Does your winch design include bars or framework that dig in to keep from dragging the tractor?

In my experience, the only times where a winch might be usefull is when I couldn't drive the tractor a reasonable distance to pull the log or other objects without having to re-rig the tow. In these instances I have always been able to rig a block to another tree to allow me to pull from a different angle than the log is being drug at. Also in my experience, winches are better at moveing the thing they are mounted on than the thing the cable is attached to unless there is a very definite weight/traction advantage.

With the cost of the winch you will probably be over $1K once you add in the price of the structure materials and tackle. There is of course the time to fabricate it and get the bugs worked out also. If you have room to move the tractor around, you might be money way ahead to just invest in some good tackle and use the tractor drawbar pulling ability to pull the logs, especially if this is only a one time affair. All I typically need is a long enough cable with good swaged eyes to reach from where I can drive to where the log is. I use that cable to drag the log in to where I can drive up on it for a short tow. A snatch block and chain for rigging is handy for where you have to rig angled pulls and some long chains for rigging the short pulls once you get the downed tree close enough to back up to. This is just based on my personal experience and I don't know your exact situation. I figure that if you have to drag a cable out to the log anyway, you could probably just as easilly pull the log with the tractor as you could with a winch. If you do go with the winch, just be sure that the cable pull point is below the rear axle(preferably down near the drawbar height) to eliminate the possibility of pulling the tractor over backwards.

Good Luck.

 

[agh]

ron, you make some good points. I have a case 485(50hp +/-) and using chains to pull logs to where my tongs on short boom pole can lift them for dragging. I have some steep hills with big trees down under, so having 100 feet of cable or so would allow me to salvage some of them. The snatch blocks and pullys might work but some of the places I don't have a lot of manuvering room to make a long pull. If I could make the 3 pt attached pto drum winch it would have to have a homemake bottom blade to dig into dirt to prevent tractor from being pulled backwards. I am hoping one of TBN'ers has made something like this and will share experiences. thanks for the input. agh

 

[Pooh_Bear]

Seems like you would be money ahead to get a 3 point reciever hitch mount
and one of the adapter plates to mount a winch to a reciever hitch.
Then just go buy a regular electric winch rated with a high pulling power.

If you go this route then you could also use the winch on any vehicle with a reciever hitch.
Mite even leave the tractor free to do other work while you winch logs.

Pooh Bear

 

[schmism]

electric... bah humbug....

we have hydrolics!

milemarker has been makeing hydrolicly driven winches for like ... ever

Mile Marker - Abused Worldwide!! Hydrualic and Electric Winches

either use a power beyond with a valve... a rear remote, or get a PTO hydroilc pump to drive it!

 

[Pooh_Bear]

I'd rather use hydraulic myself.
But if you use hydraulic you can't move it to the reciever hitch on your truck.
Unless of course your truck has a hydrualic system.

Pooh Bear

 

[agh]

electric... bah humbug....

we have hydrolics!

milemarker has been makeing hydrolicly driven winches for like ... ever

Mile Marker - Abused Worldwide!! Hydrualic and Electric Winches

either use a power beyond with a valve... a rear remote, or get a PTO hydroilc pump to drive it!

Sorry I don't understand but could you or someone explain why it is not more simple to use pto shaft to direct drive the pto type winch. what is the advantage of using the hydraulics to power the winch, am i overlooking something. are there safety issues with the direct pto winch? can the hydraulic winch be activated some distance from the tractor maybe? agh

 

[agh]

electric... bah humbug....

we have hydrolics!

milemarker has been makeing hydrolicly driven winches for like ... ever

Mile Marker - Abused Worldwide!! Hydrualic and Electric Winches

either use a power beyond with a valve... a rear remote, or get a PTO hydroilc pump to drive it!

Sorry I don't understand but could you or someone explain why it is not more simple to use pto shaft to direct drive the pto type winch. what is the advantage of using the hydraulics to power the winch, am i overlooking something. are there safety issues with the direct pto winch? can the hydraulic winch be activated some distance from the tractor maybe? Electric winches heat up with pulling logs. my old warn 8000 on '77 bronco will do one or two logs short distances but i need a more rapid and dependable winch source. agh

 

[MikeD74T]

I have a winch like you're talking about. I built an arch of 4" schedule 80 pipe (cause it was free). It hinged off brackets under my loader frame at the rear axle. Lifted with the 3 pt hitch. The feet of the arch dug into the ground when lowered so it did not rely on tractor brakes when winching. The arch held a pulley 4' off the groung when winching. Used a low hitch & chains for dragging to minimize the load on the 3pt hitch. I'd send pictures but don't have a digital camera & it's 150 miles away.

 

[RonMar]

Sorry I don't understand but could you or someone explain why it is not more simple to use pto shaft to direct drive the pto type winch. what is the advantage of using the hydraulics to power the winch

The hydraulics would allow more fine control of the winch. It would also allow you to control the winch from somewhere other than the seat of the tractor. It might also be easier to set up. Basically coupling a hydraulic motor shaft to the input shaft of the winch reduction gear. No hassels with shaft drive angles and a 90 degree intermediate gearbox(if the winch dosn't already do this for you) to get from the pto output to the winch input. Basically connect the motor to the winch, mount the winch on whatever frame you fabricate to mate it to the tractor then plumb in the motor supply and return hydraulic hoses from a control valve. If your tractor already has rear remotes, the plumbing is mostly done. You might also be able to start out with a off the shelf hydraulic winch then like an electric, all you have to do is mount it and plumb it. You can get an 8000LB hydraulic from surplus center for around $800-900.
Surplus Center

 

[Youare]

I don't see why you can not reproduce what Farmim Norse, and others have made. The key element will be some part of the winch frame contacting the ground. I have an old Farmi winch which has two legs that set on the ground when in the working position. They will bite into the ground to prevent the tractor from sliding backwards when pulling with the winch.

The newer models have a rest that looks like a rear blade which acts as a sliding stop, which can be used for pushing logs and things into a pile. Square steel tube or Schedule 80 pipe the right size should work quite well. As long as you have the means to shape and weld the various parts together you could save a few bucks.

I have not seen many used logging winches for CUT's for sale and new ones are a bit pricey. However, once you have one you will find out why there are not many used ones for sale.

Look at what is out there that works and copy it.

Randy

 

[agh]

I have a winch like you're talking about. I built an arch of 4" schedule 80 pipe (cause it was free). It hinged off brackets under my loader frame at the rear axle. Lifted with the 3 pt hitch. The feet of the arch dug into the ground when lowered so it did not rely on tractor brakes when winching. The arch held a pulley 4' off the groung when winching. Used a low hitch & chains for dragging to minimize the load on the 3pt hitch. I'd send pictures but don't have a digital camera & it's 150 miles away.

mike, what size pto winch did you use? is it driven by a tractor type pto shaft? is winch mounted so that what feet engage soil winch is directly in line with pto shaft? what size cable and how much on your winch? do you operate it from tractor seat or down at the winch? thanks for your help. agh

 

[Pooh_Bear]

Also with hydraulic, you can get multiplication of force, trading speed for pulling power.
And, if you get in a really hard pull, with PTO you bog the motor down, with hydraulic you just cause the pressure safety valve to blow open.
With PTO you would get a lot of power transmission losses.
With hydraulic you don't have all those power losses due to drivetrain.
And with hydraulic you don't have to worry over electrical issues,
such as draining your battery or overworking your alternator,
or just plain burning out the winch motor from overloading it.

But electric is more portable than hydraulic. Electric will work on most any vehicle.
So if you can mount it to the vehicle you can run it.

do you operate it from tractor seat or down at the winch?

If you got a winch on the back of your tractor, you don't operate it from the seat.
If the cable breaks it will act like a buggy whip and split your head open.
Always operate a winch from as far to the side as you can get.

Pooh Bear

 

[Renze]

I would make sure that your PTO winch is at least shear bolt protected at 75% of the cable break strain.
Then once you have broken enough shearbolts, you realise why hydraulic would have been better.

 

[agh]

I would make sure that your PTO winch is at least shear bolt protected at 75% of the cable break strain.
Then once you have broken enough shearbolts, you realise why hydraulic would have been better.

could you use a slip clutch like on a bushhog shaft which has about 8 nuts you tighten or loose the springs on a clutch assembly instead of shear bolts?
also what happens if you overload a hydraulic winch, broken cable or what?
agh

 

[RonMar]

What happens to a hydro winch when it is overloaded? Same as when any other winch is overloaded, something breaks. The beauty of a Hydraulic is that you can limit the force available with the hydraulic safety valve on the hydraulic system. You can set the safety to not exceed the maximum pressure rateing for the winch. You can also quite easilly place a hydraulic pressure gauge on a "T" fitting where the pressure is supplied to the winch and monitor how much pressure/power is being applied to the winch and how much load it is under.

 

[MikeD74T]

mike, what size pto winch did you use? is it driven by a tractor type pto shaft? is winch mounted so that what feet engage soil winch is directly in line with pto shaft? what size cable and how much on your winch? do you operate it from tractor seat or down at the winch? thanks for your help. agh

The winch is about 12-15k w/100' of 9/16 cable. It came from a wrecker. The only control is an in/out drum engagement. I built this for a Ford 801 that does not have live pto. I free wheel the drum, pull the cable to a tree, return & engage the drum, then run the pto from the seat. This leaves the fine control to the tractor clutch. Being a worm drive it will not freewheel unless disengaged. I just realized that this may not work as well with my new Kioti with electric pto. I'm not sure it will disengage easily under load. It should as that's the way it worked on the wrecker. The arch has legs that reach the ground when lowered. The winch is 3' behind the tractor axle just ahead of the arch. The cable leaves the drum upward at about 75 degrees to a pulley then out the back of the arch. The pto shaft runs straight back to the winch.
Look for companies that service / sell wreckers or bucket trucks as a source of winches. There are a few on EBAY.

 

[MikeD74T]

AGH, I failed to specify that this is a 3point hitch setup, not a trailer arch. The winch angle only varies when lifted & is always directly behind & inline with the tractor. A couple of times I used it to pull the tractor out of the mud or up a muddy hill. Had to let the cable down off the pulley and use a straight pull off the drum. Pulling over the pulley with the arch off the ground will immediately lift the front of the tractor skyward. I have hooks welded low on the winch frame & use short chains to twitch with. Likewize it would be unstable to twitch using the cable over the pulley.

 

[agh]

AGH, I failed to specify that this is a 3point hitch setup, not a trailer arch. The winch angle only varies when lifted & is always directly behind & inline with the tractor. A couple of times I used it to pull the tractor out of the mud or up a muddy hill. Had to let the cable down off the pulley and use a straight pull off the drum. Pulling over the pulley with the arch off the ground will immediately lift the front of the tractor skyward. I have hooks welded low on the winch frame & use short chains to twitch with. Likewize it would be unstable to twitch using the cable over the pulley.

mike , sounds like you have a working pto winch for sure, this gives me furthur ideas, i really like the TBN discussion to learn from others experience. I am leaning towards making something like you have. looking for a used or new pto winch, found some surplus one at boyceequipment.com as well as pierce wrecker but am going to loook locally for used wrecker winch at junk yard. If you get a chance to post a pct. of your setup i'd like to see it. agh

 

[sandman2234]

One of the drawbacks of PTO winching is the PTO only turns one way, and if you get in a bind, how can you back it up enough to relieve the stress on the cable so that you can reposition it or reverse it?
Say your pulling a log and it catches a large tree root or a V between two trees. How do you back it off?
With hydraulics, you just flip the handle the other way and your in business.
A lot of PTO winches don't have a forward/reverse lever. They rely on the power supply to have it. I bought a Bradenton 20t winch that had the reverse lever.
Good luck with it, hollar if we can help!
David from jax