I finally figured out why my winch kept overheating on a trail near Moab

Last summer I was stuck on a slickrock climb outside Moab, pulling my buddy's Jeep up a steep ledge, and my winch started smoking after just three minutes of hard use. Turned out the synthetic rope was spooled too loosely from when I installed it, causing it to dig into the lower wraps and bind under load. Has anyone else dealt with winch spooling issues messing up pull power on technical trails?

2 comments

2 Comments

sarah_hart12d ago

No kidding, that loose spool thing is such a sneaky problem. I had the exact same thing happen on a muddy trail in Colorado last fall, my winch just stopped pulling after a few minutes and I was so confused. I had spooled it by hand without any tension, and the rope just dug into the layers underneath and locked up solid. Took me forever to figure out why it was overheating when the rope was brand new, it's wild how much tension matters even during installation.

cole35612d ago

Wait, did you ever figure out if the rope was actually damaged from that? I had a buddy who did the same thing on a muddy trail in Utah, and his rope ended up with these weird flat spots where it got crushed under the next layers. He ended up having to replace the whole thing because it started fraying bad after just a few more pulls. It's crazy how something as simple as not pulling tension while spooling can ruin a brand new rope. I've started using a trick where I tie the rope off to a tree or something and use the truck to pull it tight while spooling, just to make sure it's all even. Beats having to deal with that headache on the trail later.