iv got a 2500 viper winch on my foreman 450. iv been plowing alot and i didnt notice until later that my winch cable will only spool out, or winched out, about 2feet. then you can see the cable is jammed between the drum and the houseing of the winch.

even in freespool the cable will only come out until it hits the snag. iv tried pulling on the cable to no avail [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] due to the winches location, tucked pretty far in the frame, i would prefer to not remove the winch unless all els fails.

there is a pretty fair amount of metal shaveings on my winch plate, they are uniform size, im guessing cable splinters? My question is should i try tieing the cable around the tree and pulling the cable free?

 

That's what I would do. Just needs some finesse! LOL! This is kind of a stupid question, but often overlooked....did you stretch the cable and respool it when it was new? That would cause this.

 

yes i did, when i origionally got the winch i hooked it to a telephone poll, put the breaks on and had the winch pull the ATV, i figured this was sufficent streching lol. iv rewound it properly about twice a year.

the odd thing is that before i put the plow on i made sure the cable was in a straight line and would spool back and forth properly, not balling-up or anything. and now its pinched to one side of the darn drum!

o and nice pic of the brown fudge dude!

 

Yeah the brown dude makes me laugh! Probly get me in trouble, though!

It sounds like you're going to have to replace the cable, so maybe consider synthetic rope, especially since you use it for plowing. The steel cable doesn't like to be bent repeatedly like it is when raising/lowering the blade. It eventually frays and breaks. Finding a winch cable around here in the winter is nearly impossible because of this. I replaced my steel cable with rope, stuffed 75ft of it on there, and haven't looked back since. Just a thought.....

 

If you power the winch out under tension, it may help reduce the tendency for the cable to rat nest.

Anyway, be careful about hooking the cable to something and backing up, or powering the winch when it is bound up. Doing that to a cable stacked/ratnested winch can break gears/shafts/housings...

 

i tried to yank the cable loose today, no go [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] its pretty well stuck. the thing is its not rat-nesting atall, its wound correctly until you hit the piece that is stuck between the drum and houseing. theres about a 1/8" gap that the side of the 1/4" cable has found its was into, strange... then i gave 2 feet of cable that will come out.

today i ordred, from vipers website, an Amsteel 50' synthetic cable and heuse flair head. i will have to remove the winch and cut off the old cable, thats gonna be fun!

my question is can i use the hause flair head in conjunction with my roller flairhead? cuz the hause will be on the winch body and the roller will be 3 inches infront of it, on the outer frame

 

As I understand it, once a fairhead has been used with steel, it shouldn't be used with synthetic? Like any little ridge or burr will mess it up...

 

you can use it only if the cable can't get caught between the rollers and you file off any burs that might be on the rollers. They can cut a synthetic cable rather quickly.

 

I replaced my roller fairlead with a new one as they said, burrs will cut the rope. I have been told that you can only use a hawse fairlead with the synthetic rope, but that is not true. You can use a roller fairlead. They even sell them in a package just like the hawse. However, when pulling at an angle you will have to keep an eye out so the rope doesn't get caught in the corners. I think the hawse would be safer to use, but then it doesn't ever seem to mount in the right place. On my popo, it would be too far inside the front bumper.

 

My Warn XT30 came with synthetic and a roller fairlhead. I wonder if the rollers are set up with less clearance between them, or something.