Winch to pull caravan

I reckon any of the Low Mount winches of around 3000kg, running off a 12 volt battery would do the job.

Make up a frame to bolt the winch into and anchor it to terra firma, hook up to battery and away you go.

Would it be easier to fit tow bar tongue to front of vehicle.

Why not fit a vehicle mounted winch on the tow vehicle and fix a mounting point for a snatch block to the floor at back of your garage.

The advantages I see with this set up is that you get a vehicle mounted winch, the car's electrical system takes care of the battery and the mounting point for a snatch block would be easeir to organise and less intrusive than haveing a winch bolted to the floor of the garage all the time.

Duncs

If it's a short driveway then a Tirfor hand winch would do the job.
Duncs suggestion of Dyna bolting some plates to the floor & fitting pully's to winch off would be the simplist for a power installation or fit a 240Volt hoist in the back of the shed. Have seen a couple 2nd hand at machinery clearances or look at this one on ebay . 22 m cable, plugs into 10amp socket although may need a slightly stronger unit depending on how steep the driveway is.
Cheers Craig.............

240v boat ramp winch see them on the gold coast on the canal homes

How about a front mounted towball on your bullbar/bumper Push the van in with the car/4by and take it out the same way.

Cheers

hi Graham, i have a windsor rapid and a drive that is hard to get the van up. i use my front mounted warn and a snatch block to get it up. i pull it up backwards though, i also have the winch fitted with wireless hand held remote so i can stay with the van. works a treat.
cheers shane.

Hi - I have the same problem. I own the Swan for all the same reasons. Would love the Rapid but cannot get it in.

I wanted to check my situation out so I put a huge cardboard box on the top of my van in a variety of places and heights and took all my measurements after hooking the van up and reversing in/out of garage. You would have to have the hitch point very low if you are bringing it up in reverse to normal ie forwards. Rig up a mock A frame to the size of the rapid on the rear of your current van and see what happens as you reverse it in and to check out how low the hitch point needs to be and also to measure if it actually lowers the height at front to get it in. I am not sure it actually will lower it enough to work (at least in my case anyway)

I was going to look at some of the power movers (see link), just not sure how powerful they are on an incline or if price justifies them.

van power movers

Take care using dynabolt theory, i would hate to see it sailing down the drive if they snapped or nut sheared off. Would be worthwhile checking with an engineer for advice first.

love to know how how you get on cheers mick

Two other things that may help depending on your situation are -

1. using the low profile parking wheels which are basically a solid low profile tyre/rim designed to lower your van. It does mean changing the wheels each time you want to park it in the garage. They often come up on ebay and i have seen them anywhere from $100 to $300 a pair.

2. reversing the axle so your van sits about 4" lower. Depends on if it is already done or not and it will also depend on if you need the van to sit higher for 4wdriving etc.

in conjunction they may assist. good luck

25 Degrees is very steep.

If the Van is 1750kg with 25 degrees then you need about 1000 to 1200kg of pulling power. ( =1750*Sin 25 + 100kg friction)

1500Kg would be tons.

If you have 240V power get a 1.5 or 2 tonhoist. It will be safer and cheaper than a 12 V winch and you don't need to get a 12v charger and battery to run it.

How about this?

Get a good length of cable or decent rope.

Attach the cable to the van and then to the towbar, with appropriate shackles and pull the thing up the drive. When it is far enough up, apply the van parking brake and chock the wheels.

Then reverse back and put the van on the towball.

We did this with boats on slimy boat ramps numerous times with great success.

Simple, yet effective.

Jim.