Winches Stuck in the mud, help me pick a winch?

[aczlan]

I've used the backhoe curl to pull, simultaneous with uncurling the front loader to push, to inch back out of an almost-stuck. Literally an inch at a time. Would that work?

Also if the backhoe can lift the tractor off the ground, do that and put planks under the tires.

Finally, for backing out, I've found if the front tires are badly embedded then lifting the front with the loader and tobogganing back with the weight on the flat bottom of the bucket instead of on the tires, worked better than trying to drive backward.

Do you really have a tree nearby that will anchor a 12k pull? I'm certain I would rip my apple orchard trees out of the ground before a really stuck tractor would start to move.

Summary - try to get something under those tires.

If the ground is too soft to support the backhoe bucket, cut some 4 inch or so chunks of tree that are 4 ft long and use those as a mat underneath the backhoe bucket to give you something to spread the weight of the tractor on. Then you can lift up the rear tires and put more chunks of tree underneath the rear tires and the front tires.
If you are stuck deep enough that you can't get out with the backhoe bucket, a winch is going to have a very hard time getting you out.

Aaron Z

 

[WranglerX]

Electric winches are not all they are professed to be.... They require huge amounts of power... I stuck my GC 1715 SCUT in creek crossing and with the 10,000 pound winch on my Jeep I did get it free BUT I had to make 3-4 pulls had to let battery recover and at one point the 100 AMP alternator could not keep up with winch load and battery voltage got so low it killed the engine (ECU shut down) Has to wait about 20 minutes for battery to recover on its own before it would start Jeep again...... And Jeep also has 950 CCA Odyssey battery.... Also note that it also slid the Jeep (4500 pounds) in the dirt it was sitting on with all four wheels locked....

Best advice is to avoid mud holes.... Take a look at some YOUTUBE stuff about rescuing construction equipment from rivers and swamps and you will have greater understanding not to go into the swamp....

Dale

 

[s219]

Those 12V winches are very limited, both in the amount of time you'll get out of the battery and the limited duty cycle of the winch. They will probably overheat or kill the battery long before you get out. You'd probably get as much productivity out of a good quality come-along and it won't ever quit on you.

The sad reality is that you have to be very conservative when it comes to tractors and mud (same can be said for hills and slopes). Better to avoid potential situations then to risk it. You can lose a lot of time/money/safety trying to fight nature.

For some reason a lot of people are attracted to 12V winches but the reality is that they are extremely limited in use. I have one on my UTV and know it will help get the UTV un-stuck in a pinch, but that's all. I have talked to neighbors who think it could be used to pull trees over, winch a stuck truck out, pull something long distance, etc, and it's insane how elevated their expectations are compared to reality. Somewhere along the line, there must have been real good marketing on 12V winches.

 

[LouNY]

I would expect that most people have no idea of the differences between winches, they have seen or heard of winches being used to pull all sorts of big vehicles out of situations.
They do not realize that these are pto or hydraulic winches which can pull for extended lengths of time with extreme loads.
Back in the seventies I had pto winches on Scouts and a Land Cruiser I could do considerable work with those, people would see what they could do and get them an electric unit and then complain because it didn't do what my pto units could.

 

[WranglerX]

Might look into a hydraulic winch.... I believe WARN has a hydraulic winch that works on power steering pump already fitted to most vehicles...

Dale

 

[ptsg]

I made a hydraulic winch for my tractor for the same reason as the OP. Never got stuck but had some close calls on a hilly terrain with hidden holes under the brush.

Haven't had the need to use it on a stuck situation yet but I use it quite frequently to pull on trees that are in tight spaces and I need to cut them. Works very good.

It's mounted on the front of the tractor, but the tractor does have a sub frame from the front to about behind the bell-housing. So the stress is not on the bell-housing. Now with the loader, I made the supports from the subframe all the way to the back of the tractor, under the rear axle. So now everything is tied together from the winch in the front to rear of the tractor.

Electric winches are nice but to have it mounted on the tractor might put too much load on the alternator. These tractors just don't have enough Amps on the alternator for a winch.

 

[ruffdog]

If you live in areas that can be muddy, you should have at least two pair of traction boards. I would use wood planks under the out-riggers, and the hoe, to get the boards under the rear tires. Go slow and think every step of the way. :thumbsup:

Rough Country Traction Boards - 1 | Rough Country (R)

 

[California]

I was also wondering if it would be worth trying just cabling over to the tree and using the backhoe to exert a pulling force against that cable.

That worked well for me when I graded dirt into a hole where deer were coming under the fence - then I fell in the hole and got all snarled up in the fence. photo.

The only way out that wouldn't destroy the fence, was drag the little tractor sideways by the force of the backhoe curl of the larger tractor.

This got me free of the several points where the tractor engaged the fence. It then let me drive forward in an arc still anchored to that chain. No damage to the fence at all. I had quit struggling and gone for the other tractor before anything tore.

Thread - with a second photo - where I described this adventure: Gotta have two Yanmars! (Worst Stuck).

In summary - backhoe bucket curl is the strongest force you have on a tractor.

 

[jmc]

Seems like I saw a picture of a winch powered with a chainsaw engine/drivetrain. It was a commercial product iirc, and would definitely be portable.

 

[Jstpssng]

Seems like I saw a picture of a winch powered with a chainsaw engine/drivetrain. It was a commercial product iirc, and would definitely be portable.

Lewis Winch. Powerhouse by Lewis Chainsaw Winch (8, lb capacity) kit 7391897921 | eBay 8000 lbs of pull using double cable, but I still believe that using a backhoe or bucket is stronger.