Yesterday while doing the Greenwater/gravel pit run, I volunteered to pul somebody out who got a wee bit stuck. This was my first use of my winch, so I was kind of excited. After we got all done I pulled out some of the cable to make sure it would feed back onto the drum nice and even. To my surprise, the cable started unwinding itself fromt he drum, like backlash on a fishing reel. I looked closer and saw that the end of the cable that bolts to side of the drum had come loose. When we got the cable pulled all the way out we found that the eye on the end of the cable had broken apart. We were all confused, and somebody with a lot of experience (WATRD) even said "I've never seen that happen before". Immediately after installing the winch I pulled most of the cable out and put it back on under load, so I just couldn't imagine what happened.

I have thought and thought about this and have figured it out. Right after I rewound the cable with it's first load I inadverdently hit the "out" switch, causing the drum to unspool slightly. I did not figure it would have loosened to the bottom wraps, so I just wound it back up again without giving it a second thought Obviously, the cable loosend up enough to wreak havoc on the eye when I started winching with a real load (not only was the eye broken, but also badly scarred fromt he cable beating on it so badley)

So, the lesson, I guess, is take the time to unspool, then rewrap with tension on the line, any time the cable on your drum gets a little loose. I am mush less ignorant on the ways of the winch now than I was two days ago.

Then again, maybe it was just a defective cable eye

 

Hey Scott,
Pretty fun yesterday wasn't it.

Have you considered going with a synthetic line such as Masterpull. That would increase the safety factor ten folds.

Man that would have been scary if the cable gave under the heavy load.

Mike