I never had a need for a winch, but I can see that many people have them, and it could come in handy, especially with these stock tires...LOL.

From what I understand, the Warn 3500 lb winch is the way to go, with a synthetic rope. Can someone tell me the benefit of having a synthetic rope vs regular rope?

Pete

 

The synthetic is more friendly to your hands. It does not have memory like steel. It does not fatique like steel. It withstands shock loads better than steel. It can easily be spliced an feild repaired unlike steel.

 

Have you ever looked at Viper Winches? http://www.motoalliance.com The Viper Elite 3000# has an 18 month warranty. The kit comes with a model specific mount, all hardware, wiring, handlebar mini rocker, fairleads, synthetic cable in your choice of color, winch cover, wireless remote, ****** block. The winch has three stage planetary all steel gears, mechanical and dynamic brake, fully sealed waterproof and the specs are all meeting or exceeding the WARN. The best thing is that it is only $324.99 and 30 for shipping unless you live near Minneapolis MN then you can pick it up. They sell them at highlifter too. 1 prob is they list all out of stock because Warn is suing them over the design of their freespool switch. If they were a bad winch do you think Warn would be worried about the design of Viper's switch?

 

Just adding a few more..
A big one IMO is it doesn't store energy or stretch nearly as much as steel rope and therefore doesn't whip back if it breaks under load..
It doesn't rot or rust..
It weighs 1/7 the weight of steel rope
And the list goes on..

One negative I have seen is it does fray easier than steel,luckily some of the winches that come with synthetic rope also come with a sheath that protects the first part of the rope where it is more likely to come in contact with something during winching. Make sure you protect it against the rope coming into contact with the ground,trees,rocks ect while winching,especially if it doesn't have a sheath. A buddy of mine who uses the synthetic on his rock crawler carries a heavy weight wool blanket to put between the rope and anything it might rub on when winching..
Also supposedly a roller fairlead can possible pinch and fray the synthetic rope ,epecially if used to winch at high side angles. An aluminum hawse is reccomended..one company makes a roller fairlead with polyurethan rollers that they say is ok for synthetic rope.
Some winches with synthetic rope will come with a roller fairlead which I haven't quite figured out...I think the Haswe requirement might be splitting hairs..although I know the rollers on mine have frayed the rope some..not sure if the Hawse would have been any better but it does generally have a larger opening thus allowing larger winching angles without the fairlad really putting much pressure on the rope.

 

Just thought I would share this video from YouTube about the WARN XT3.0.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk-eU...3CF133&index=0


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