Big ol' winch- HELP !

[bcarwell]

I just bought a big old PTO winch made by the Silent Hoist & Crane Company, S/N 7958 (no apparent model number). See picture #1
I am using it to pull a 4x8 trailer up and down a 40 degree incline cliff about 80 feet. Trailer weighs maybe 400 pounds total when loaded with tools, quickrete, etc.
which I am pulling up and down the cliff to and from a river bank
I have several questions about how to use and power it. I had intended to use my tractor PTO but also would like to consider an electric motor drive.
Questions are:

1) Any guess what the gear ratio might be ? I think they were used on wreckers to move cars around in a dumpyard.
2) What are the two ports in the gear casing for on one side in picture #2 ? They are holes about 3/4 inch in diameter and have seals but are open now. I'm guessing it was to
circulate gear oil into and out of the gearbox for cooling but not sure. But if so why are the similar ones on the other side of the winch sealed up ? And for my application wouldn't
I just seal them up ? My duty cycle is way low: one trip up the hill 80 feet, then stop for 10 minutes to load/unload. Rinse, wash, repeat.
3) For the above indicated 400 pound load rolling up the hill, what horsepower electric motor would you guess would be required to drive the thing up and down the
hillside ? Any additional gearing needed or just direct chain drive from motor to winch gear ?
4) If I used my tractor PTO how would you hook it up to the gears in picture #3 ?
5) Why are their two drive gears separated by about an inch by a smooth cyliindrical surface ? Almost looks like the smooth surface was for an optional
belt drive with the belt between the two gears. Are you supposed to use BOTH gears with ONE chain spanning them and if so where do you get a chain that wide
that spans the 1 inch gap to engage both gears ? For my 400 pound max load couldn't I use just one of the gears and a smaller width chain ?
6) How would you rig it so it could go in both directions to pull the load up and down the hill ? My PTO only goes in one direction.
7) Ditto if I used an electric motor. A reversible one ? What HP ? And I would assume starting torque would not be sufficient so would I need a clutch of some sort ?
If so what kind and where can I find one ?
8) There appears to be a band brake. Would I need to refurb and use it presumably when reversing direction and lowering a load down the hill ?

 

[bcarwell]

Here's a picture of the band brake:

 

[schmism]

Id guess the ports are for hydrualic lines to power the winch.

Id guess the chain drive was for a other PTO item. All mechanical PTO winches ive ever seen included a gear box selector for a reverser as the input to them always spins the same direction.

I would not spend the time or the effort to get it working for what small project you have.

For as small a load as you indicated, you can get a electric winch with cable from HF for less than $100.

 

[bcarwell]

Thanks for the reply Steve.
It hadn't occurred to me that the ports might be for hydraulics since I think of "PTO" in terms of a tractor, e.g. mechanical. But now that you mention it I see how it might be driven from a hydraulic pump. Any way to tell ? Does the gear cover they are in look like a hydraulic motor ? I guess I pop off the housing and look inside ? Would there be any way to adapt it to electric or tractor PTO drive ?
As for the "small" project, its only small now. Eventually I hope to beef it up so that at some point I might be able to move heavier loads like river bank dirt for gardens and perhaps even fashion a people mover. Besides, I like playing with stuff like this.
And I thought about electric winches but could not find any reasonably priced ones that 1) were driven off 115 VAC rather than batteries (and the latter would be even more expense) and 2) could take up 80-100 feet of line. Most of the ones I saw were maybe 30-50 feet and fabbing a bigger replacement spool seemed like a horror show and essentially a rebuild of the entire winch. I was also concerned about duty cycle for an electrically driven winch working continuously over 80-100 feet. I do own a small one from Harbor Fright that is 115 VAC that I use in my barn vertically for storing stuff in a loft- very inexpensive and effective, but again, only a short cable.
If it is a hydraulic driven winch, any recommendations on a hydraulic pump and where to buy ? Maybe a PTO tractor-driven one would make sense since I could get other uses out of it like a log splitter or grabbers for my FEL since my 25HP Kubota's hydraulics are pretty limited for auxiliary uses in terms of GPM flow and power.

Bob

 

[sparc]

Instead of letting your winch do all the work, let gravity do some for you. Put a counterweight on the other end of the cable from your trailer equal to the empty trailer plus half your calculated load. Then your winch is only moving a mass equal to half the load going up or down and the counter-balanced trailer and weight are cancelling each other out. This is similar to the way an elevator car is rigged. For a light load you might be able to use a hand crank.

 

[bcarwell]

I too thought of the elevator counterweight thing, but couldn't figure out an easy/reliable way to get the wide trailer and the counterweight to bypass each other on the way up or down or what to use for counterweight that would slide without building another trailer...
Bob

 

[bcp]

Looks like a double drum winch from which someone removed one set of gears, then welded the two drums together after removing adjoining flanges.

The gearbox with holes is probably empty.

Bruce

 

[easygo]

I agree with BCP, that the other side of the winch had the same (worm)gear drive too. Over one of the holes you can still see part of the mounting for the break.

If in fact you have a wrecker winch it will have a low gear ratio. I made a logging winch using an old wrecker winch and that one has 60:1 ratio and is wicked strong. I power it with the PTO and #60 chain. It has a power-in-out and freewheel options all done mechanically with an internal gear box.

My guess is that your winch was made for lifting. I see no mechanics suggesting a freewheel option. Wreckers have that for pulling out the cable. Reverse was probably resolved by an outside gear box.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Thats an old 2 way winch. In the first pics the other sprockets on the right are removed. The old tow trucks and Pulp wood bundle cranes used them. They had a gear box that mounted under the winch with a chain to each side. One die was forward and the othe was reverse. I cant tell why it had 2 flanged on it unless it had a center sleave and ran 2 sides. for a double drum but I doubt it. If you wanted to make it PTO powered get a small older truck transmission like and od four speed. Then chain drive it to the winch. Or attach it with a yoke to the input.

Common thing to do here is just add a small hydraulic motor and run it with the tractor. I had one like this I used to run on the front of my skid steer. It wont take alot of flow either. We put one on a frame with a blade to dig in the ground and run off a friends tractor. We used it to pull out a 350 John Deere loader that was stuck.

 

[bcarwell]

Wow ! Thanks guys ! I never would have guessed it was two winches welded together. But a closer look at the drum reveals clearly a circumferential weld in the middle where they were stuck together.
No "freewheel" option I assume means since its wormgear driven I will have to power it in both directions to get it to wind and unwind, correct ?
Assuming the 60:1 gear ratio, what ballpark RPM for the gear and what drive motor horsepower would you guess would be sufficient for my application of dragging a 400 pound trailer up and down a 100 foot 40 degree incline hill ?
When you speak of powering the winch with a small hydraulic motor off a tractor, I have a 25HP Kubota. I was going to pipe off my existing hydraulics to add hydraulic cylinder jaws to my FEL. Do you suppose I could also divert such auxiliary hydraulics to adequately run the winch ? I think my hydraulic flow on such a subcompact tractor is not great (4GPM ?) but you indicate it wouldn't take much to drive the winch.
If I could do it with my Kubota, what specs/manufacturer for such a hydraulic motor would I look for ?
If I drove it with an electrical motor what kind of setup would you envision and would it need a clutch ?

Bob