Just got my first winch for Christmas! 😃 it's a 12k badlands.
First question: does everything else, soft shackles, tree saver, snatch block, ect need to also be rate for at least 12,000lbs?
2nd: how much should a winch damper/flag/blanket weigh? Ive seen them 2lbs to 5lbs and some people just use a jacket? 🤷‍♂️
3rd: the moment I start free spooling, the cable instantly starts to birds nest on the drum. I already have respooled it but I assume I needed to use more weight?​
4th: my manual says it can only winch under load for 15 seconds than has to cool for 14:45?! I understand duty cycles and not over heating it but is that for real? Could take a really long time to get unstuck! 🤯

 

The old saying "the weakest link in the chain...." applies here. If your shackle was truly rated to 9000 lbs and you were pulling 10,000 lbs (which seems unlikely), then the shackle might be the thing that fails. But realistically, are you ever going to find yourself pulling that amount of load? If so, then buy the appropriate accessories.
Can't answer your second question, but anything will be better than nothing.
3rd: yes, you need to keep tension on the cable when rolling it out. This is a lesson I keep learning the hard way. Not a bad idea to find a solid anchor point that's 50+ feet away and on level ground or slight incline up and respool the cable while in neutral, pulling the Jeep to the anchor point. Helps to have a second person to steer the Jeep while you're doing this.
Can't answer your 4th point. But then there are loads, and then heavy loads, so factor that in.

 

Welcome to JKF. Check youtube; multiple videos on winching and winching safety.

 

I watched that video. The one thing I didn't know, but will definitely remember, is to have the tip of the hook facing up, not down, when you attach it to whatever you're anchoring to.

 

There are a lot of good recovery videos out there. Those Aussie guys have a lot of them. Watch as many as you can, with as many situations as you can find. There's lots of interesting stuff out there. The reality is you will likely not find yourself in most those situations, but it's good to build a knowledge base of things to do, things that can go wrong, ways the vehicles react, etc. With a steel cable, always error on the side of caution regardless of hanging weight over that cable. I see so many people walking around and standing around those cables with very little concern or thought.

 

1. With steel cables always keep it lubed with something like Fluid film or just plain old engine oil. Just spray oil on the spooled cable on the drum every 6 months or so.
2. Time to winch and cool down is dictated by the ambient temperature around you. Colder ambient means longer winch on time.
3. I use a jacket or my 30ft tow strap wrapped around my line. Steel lines are famous for breaking near the hook as that is where they fray first. Winch careful andlube it and it will never fail. If you want to convert to synthetic braided line then try and locate a crane rigging shop to make one up. Most times they are less than half price of the 4x4 accessory shop prices.
4. Most of the acessories have standard ratings good enough for winching weights similar to Jeeps. Not sure why you got a 12,000. I have a 9000 and does well.

Hope this helps

 

1. Alright will do.
2. Makes sense.
3. Eventually I probably will up grade it. Good tip. I'll keep my eyes out.
4. Lol well that's what my wife bought me. She knows me well! I like over kill and good at breaking stuff! 🤷‍♂️

 

Shackles, straps, extension cables, etc, should all be rated for more than the winch line pull capacity.

The necessary weight of your safety damper will vary with the weight of the hardware on your line, the weight of the line itself & the stretch characteristics of the line. Synthetic line & soft shackles produce less impulse energy when a line snaps & require less damping. When using dampers, you should have several of them because you don't know where the line will snap & that means that you don't know where the damper will need to be.

The synthetic lines are not likely to birds nest when you freespool. If using wire, WEAR GLOVES when handling the wire.

The duty cycle rating is spec'd at full load. If you have a 12k winch and are pulling 2k of line tension, you can run it for longer than the 12k spec.

 

This guy speaks of using grade 70 chain. That only tells you part of what you need to know about chain.

Grade 70 is a transport grade of chain. It's a chain that is used to tie things down on a tractor trailer. In the old days, most transport chain was 3/8" & a lower transport grade, which may have been 43 or 46, but I need to look that up before swearing to it. Grade 70 5/16" was the more expensive & easier to use chain that was also accepted. These days, 3/8" G70 is also common. Grade 30 is also common. This is a soft, low grade chain that was not heat treated. It is also called proof coil or loggers chain. It is not transport grade. It's what you often find at hardware stores or Home Depot. What matters most is that your chain has a strength rating that is greater than your line pull. 1/2" G30 is probably stronger than 1/4" G70, but again, I need to look that up before swearing to it. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head anymore. You can google up a chart of chain grades, sizes & strengths.

There is also G80 & G100. These are overhead lifting sling rated chains that are sometimes also called crane chain. They are stronger than the lower grades, but they also have another useful property. The alloy they are made from is formulated to stretch before breaking, so if you are about to have a failure, you will likely get a visual warning before the failure occurs. The lower grades snap more suddenly & often without any warning when they are loaded heavily. Been there, done that, got the dents in the machinery from where the broken chain flew back & hit it. The advantage of using 40 series or 70 series in a transport scenario is that is springs back rather than deforming. If there is a shock load, G70 will spring back & retain it's original length. An equal strength piece of G100 might stretch & deform permanently, causing a slack tie down chain.

 

I've been looking at synthetic winch ropes lately. The vast majority of them do not have proper splices. Almost all of them lack tail thinning. Most splices are too short. Some don't even start with a Brummel, but instead just have a few wraps of whipping line as a starter. I estimate average splice strength to be roughly 50% of what it should be. Now, if you have 10,000# line on a 3,000# winch, you can probably get away with it, but I don't always see that much fudge factor in use.

Splice inspection is not that hard. Proper splices should weave back into themselves twice before the tail gets buried. The tail should go at least 48 diameters deep. That's a foot deep for 1/4" diameter rope. There should not be a sudden bump where the tail ends inside the jacket.

Fixing a bad splice takes a few specialty tools, a little know how, & not more than 10 minutes if you are well practiced.