Mud Mauler Winch

Joe I am pretty certain you will find chains and wire are rated on a vetical lift and not a horizontal pull and aparently the horizontal is double of the vertical.
All the best
Eric
4wd Tag Along AdventuresCape York Connections

I would have to agree with Howesy on that one.A load is a load . Load ratings are always based on a staight vertical pull.There is no way a horizontal pull can be calculated accurately except by engineers with specialised equipment.Out in the bush its all guess work based on experience Its also bad practice to place heavier duty rope,shackles,hooks on a lower rated winch as its misleading and pointless because it cant be used to its full rating.

Good to know Joe, a shear force load of 2.3 t is still 2.3 regardless of the direction the load is applied at, i think guys are getting confused with the safety factor calculations which apply to hoists / winches etc when they are approved and rated for load lifting purposes. You will see some winches rated for pulling with another rating for lifting and this is usually about half of the pulling capacity that is the safety factor in use. Cables and equiptment used for lifting people have a safety factor of 10 from memory, so when you get in a lift and read that it is good for 1000kg , the cables etc have an actuall failure rating of 10,000kg.. good to know !!

As for the winch, the info on it is great thanks Joe, i was contemplating the purchase of one next month. Do you know if Evercam sell them direct ?? or do they have a model with a higher true rating ?? Thanks Brad.

Hello again Joe, i went and had a look at one of units, they are fairly rough as far as build quality goes - especially the gear teeth. The salesman in the shop here in Melb told me that they are rated at 4.4t and that they hadn't had any complaints about them - apart from the short crank handle. Hmm so i rang the guys at evercam and asked some technical questions - ie Nata testing etc. First they told me that the chain and winch is rated at 4.4t in a static situation - ie towing a car with it. Then i got it out of them that the winch is only rated at 2t . After further questions regarding failure limits etc. they then tell me that the shear bolt is only rated at 1.2t and that this is why the winch has a short handle to limit the input force. So the winch is actually only good for 1.2t at best. It is not possible to apply more than 1.2t to the chain in a straight line pull. A far cry from 4.4t !!!!

You might as well buy a 1t chain block rated at 1t lifting force for less than half the price... Interesting what we find out in the end hey.. Thanks again for the warning and info mate. BradLife is short- but there's always time for a yarda.