Rear-mounted winch?

[johara1]

I've tree-wrapped my Power Trac many times. I've always just driven around to the downhill side of the tree, then articulated off of it using whatever implement I had on the front for downpressure to crab-walk the front tires away from the trunk. May take 4-5 times, but it has always worked.

If the tree is on my left I:
- Turn fully right.
- Push the implement down unit the front tractor wheels get loose from the ground.
- Turn fully left.
- Lift up the implement so my front tractor wheels are one the ground again.
- Repeat a few times until I'm clear of the trunk enough to drive away.

Easy peasy.

Only problems are if you cannot drive around the trunk because of other trees. Then it's time to thin the forest, so to speak! :laughing:

MR. I told them on earlier posts of this way but they can't seem to get to work or I did paint a good picture, It works for me but I will say it works way better on a PT than it does on a Ventrac or Steiner. It just maybe because of the duel steering cylinders and or the almost double the hydraulic pressure..... jim

 

[prs]

I now take Mr. Miyagi's advice; "Best defense is no be there." Johara described the common technique correctly, but the two times I got trapped, I had the contour mower on and it has large swiveling front wheels that prevent ground contact with the mower decks; thus NO traction. Pivoting around the obstacle was not an option as once there was a tall drop off on downhill side and the other involved an electrical guy wire. To crap away, you gotta have traction on the implement. It is not like having a bucket on or such.

prs

 

[MossRoad]

My mower deck and brush hog both have caster wheels and I'm still able to get away from most objects I get wrapped around.

But sometimes you do get into a situation where you can't drive around the tree to the downhill side.

 

[Chris616]

Nice work on the winch installation, Andy. Based on the one that we mount in the rear trailer hitch of our UTV it will be useful for many things. I can't see it solving the problem with wrapping the Ventrac around a tree, though, because the winch can only pull the tractor more or less straight back. Using pulleys will allow you to apply the force at the other end of the winch cable in any direction, but not at the tractor.

I've only had this happen once so far with my newish Ventrac (experience is a good teacher). The solution that worked in my situation hasn't been suggested yet, so I'll throw it out. I could see that with each articulation of the tractor the tree was getting closer, so before it progressed to the point where this wouldn't solve the problem I removed one of the outside rear dual wheels. Then I could just drive straight forward. That meant I only had to source a 1" socket, a breaker bar and a block of wood (to drive the inner wheel up onto) to solve the problem.

Chris

 

[Andy2dotO]

Thanks, Chris.

Agreed that this is no "silver bullet" solution, but as you mention, I've been using a snatch block and one of the various trees around to pull sideways when I needed to.

Removing the wheel -- great solution. I just didn't catch my mistake in time to employ that plan.

For now, my best defense is to follow the advice of another user in this thread: "Just don't do that." =0)

Still, wheel removal, potential articulation shifts, winching -- all better than cutting down a perfectly good tree. I'll report back with successes and mishaps.

I am sure there will be both.