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Jan

23

Top Reasons You Need A Winch On Your Bucket Truck

Posted by : Bucket Trucks Blog | On : January 23, 2012

Category: Bucket Trucks

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The Top 5 Reasons You Need a Winch on Your Bucket Trucks

Winches are nothing new for bucket trucks. In fact, winches have become practically imperative for some cherry pickers. If you are in forestry, line-work, or go off-road much, you should have a bucket truck with a winch.

Let’s talk about why you need a winch for your bucket truck:

1. Getting stuck in mud, high centered, or on ice. If you go offroad for work sites in your bucket truck, you should absolutely have a bucket truck with a winch. The winch will save you tons of time and money in order to get you unstuck and back to work.

2. Pulling. You may need to pull poles, other trucks, and random objects with your bucket truck. In order to do this, you’ll need a winch. It isn’t recommended you use a bucket truck for pulling but, it may be the only option you have. Keep in mind, bucket trucks and the parts for them aren’t cheap. Use extreme caution.

3. Short distance towing. Need to tow a load for a few feet but don’t have a trailer hitch? You can use your winch to tow it for a very short difference. It is a delicate process so, secure your load and be careful. Don’t tow for any considerable distance and definitely don’t tow on roads… don’t jeopardize other people’s safety.

4. Using a winch as a directional tool for hitching. If you have a very heavy load that you need to hitch to your truck, use a winch to guide the load onto the hitch securely. It’s much easier than navigating your bucket truck carefully or trying to shove the trailer under the hitch precisely.

5. Going on a steep incline / decline. If your driving on a steep grade, it’s suggested you use a winch to keep your bucket truck secure. Obviously, you’ll never work at a site like this but, in order to keep the truck stable, it is recommended you use your winch for added security. Some jobs are in the hardest to get to places, for those jobs, use your winch.

Picture of a Winch

In conclusion, having a winch on your bucket truck can be pretty handy in sticky situations. It may even enable you to help out a friend from time to time [if that's your thing]. As you know, we have several bucket trucks for sale and rent from Southwest Equipment. We also have our very own page dedicated to self recovery winches for bucket trucks that had a manual explaining how to use these safely. Check out our inventory and visit or call us today so we can answer any questions you have about our available inventory!

Jan

25

Self Recovery Winches for Bucket Trucks – Manual Part 2 of 2

Posted by : Bucket Trucks Blog | On : January 25, 2011

Category: Bucket Trucks

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A How To Guide for Using Winches on Bucket Trucks

Installation

The bumper on our F-450 is massive. With a channel shape of cold rolled and stamped steel alloy our 12,000 winch wouldn’t even flex it. Unfortunately it is held on with four puny screws. You can bash into things all you want; just don’t pull on it too hard. We remedied that by buying a six inch channel to fasten to the frame behind the bumper and mounting the winch through the bumper with longer, hardened bolts than those supplied. If you have a newer truck you can probably find a custom solution just for your truck, but it’ll cost as much as the winch.

You should not double the recovery rope through a snatch block and back to your winch mount. If you do you will be doubling the strain on your winch mount; it should be hooked back to the frame. We bolted a 12,000 tow hook to the underside of a frame member of our truck.

 

Electrical

You will have to refer to the instructions that came with your winch for electrical connections. If you are connecting dissimilar metals together IE. aluminum to copper, it is a good idea to use anti-oxidant paste (from an electrical supplier) on the connections. Don’t splice feed lines to the winch; connections that develop resistance can rob you of a lot of power, and the current that isn’t getting to your winch motor is heating up the connections or cable. If the supplied cable isn’t long enough you will likely need a heavier wire gauge cable. Make all electrical connections absolutely tight and check them regularly for tightness and corrosion.

Recovery


 

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

You should already be wearing all of the following if you are using a bucket truck:

Safety glasses – protect your eyes from flying debris, battery acid or a broken winch rope.

Leather gloves – are an absolute must when handling any kind of winch rope, especially wire.

Leather boots – provide far more protection for your feet than canvas sneakers or low shoes.

Work clothing – should fit comfortably and not have any loose parts than can get snagged.

 

 

Rigging

The U.S. Army has a great 100 page training manual on rigging – Field Manual 5-125. Even if you have a good understanding of wire rope and pulleys you may not know how much weight different soil types support (it’s in there). You can find the PDF for download on many sites.

The most important safety tip is: STAND FAR ENOUGH AWAY that the full length of your rigging cannot strike you no matter where it breaks while performing a recovery operation. The second safety tip is: doubling your wire rope back to your vehicle with a snatch block DOUBLES THE POWER OF YOUR WINCH. All rigging components must support twice the capacity of your winch. A safety margin is built into chain, shackles, hooks, etc. – their working rating is several times smaller than their breaking point.

Run your rigging in direct line with the X axis of your vehicle (front to back). I’ve pulled cars back onto the road sideways in the winter, but a bucket truck ain’t a car. You’ll see examples of snatch blocks used to change the direction of pull, but that would be an exception for a bucket truck. You might give this consideration when you are backing into a questionable spot. Rigging a snatch block to change direction of pull creates a dangerous situation – if the rigging fails the ten pound snatch block and heavier shackle will be flung in almost any direction.

Wrap your tow strap around a suitable tree. Keep in mind that I have ripped out 4 inch trees with our little 3,000 lb. tractor and knock down 6 inch trees with a 7,500 lb. compact diesel front end loader. The type of soil and how wet it is will make a lot of difference. The closer you place the strap to the ground the less likely you are to uproot the tree. (I place chains or the loader bucket up as high as possible to remove a tree, often excavating the roots.) If you are doubling the tow strap, slip a shackle through both loops. Our tow strap can  also be passed through the loop on one end of the strap in order to use the entire length of the tow strap; yours may be different.

If you are doubling back your winch rope, pass it through the snatch block and run the shackle clevis pin through the clevis and snatch block; tighten it with a wrench. Shackles are rated for the force which will deform them; the breaking force will be many times higher. The tighter the shackle pin is the less likely it will be for the shackle to deform.

For lighter recovery operations you can simply hook the winch rope hook directly onto the tow strap, or preferably a shackle. DO NOT HOOK THE WINCH HOOK BACK ONTO THE WINCH ROPE; doing so will damage the wire rope. Remember that the full power of your winch is not achieved until the winch cable has been spooled out to the last layer of rope; the fourth (top) layer will have almost half the power that the winch is rated for.

 

Winching

Leave both manual transmissions and automatic transmissions in NEUTRAL. This is important even if you are preforming a recovery on another vehicle. Block all four wheels and put the parking brake on if you are recovering another vehicle. When you see your wheel chocks digging into the ground you’ll understand how easy it would be to break the parking pawl off in your transmission. If you are dead-manning with another vehicle make sure that vehicle is in neutral; you don’t want to damage a friends vehicle. Use only brakes and chocks. I used a concrete truck sideways as a deadman once but most suspensions aren’t designed for that.

Start your engine. A large winch will deplete your battery in minutes. A 400 amp winch draws more current than our starter motor. That’s why it is important to check your electrical connections regularly; do it now! If your cables barely fit when new, imagine having to cut six inches of crystallized copper off an end because a connection became loose.

Take up the slack while you guide the winch rope onto the drum so it starts off evenly. Insure that the rope is not going to pile up on one side of the drum if at all possible.

Move far enough away from the rigging that you will not be struck if something fails. Make sure all bystanders also understand that they must not stand anywhere near the recovery operation.

Watch your winch rope while spooling in. If it piles up too much on one side you may have to chock the wheels, spool out some rope and re-spool the excess so it lies in tight, even layers. If the vehicle hasn’t straightened out enough it may be necessary to repeat this process.

Stop immediately if your winch stalls; don’t ‘jog’ it in an attempt to get it started again or to free a binding cable. Read your winch manual to see how to free a binding cable. Stop and wait several minutes if your winch gets too hot to hold your hand on. The duty cycle of winch motors is too dependent on conditions for manufacturers to publish it; just don’t run your electric winch motor until you burn it up; you may find a replacement motor does not perform as well as your old reliable original (just sayin’). If you can keep your hand on the motor you should be OK.

When you are done, free-spool the cable out, wipe your rope clean and dry while re-tensioning it. If it isn’t dirty wipe wire ropes with a rag soaked in oil.

 

 

Safety

 

Read your winch manual, FM 5-125 and this guide until you thoroughly understand what you are doing.

Inspect your winch, mount, rigging and electrical connections before use.

Stand far enough away that the full length of your rigging cannot strike you no matter where it breaks; never stand in line with the rigging.

Doubling your wire rope back to your vehicle with a snatch block doubles the power of your winch. All components must be sized accordingly.

Wear leather gloves while handling wire rope and keep your rope like new.

Do not hook the winch hook back onto the winch rope, it will damage the rope; that would be a bad place for your rigging to break.

Use a heavy dampener such as a large throw rug or floppy rug remnant over the middle of the winch rope to dampen it in case of a failure.

Avoid sudden shocks to the rigging; a shock load can damage your winch.

If your winch rope binds between wraps in a lower layer be careful freeing it; spooling out a binding rope can cause a sudden shock load.

Stop immediately and determine the cause if your winch stalls. Stop and wait five to ten minutes if your winch gets too hot to hold your hand on.

Keep the hood of your vehicle closed while preforming a recovery. Under severe conditions an overheated battery can explode. Sulphuric acid can disfigure or blind you! Wash it off immediately with copious amounts of water.

Jan

24

Self-Recovery Winches for Bucket Trucks – Manual Part 1 of 2

Posted by : Bucket Trucks Blog | On : January 24, 2011

Category: Bucket Trucks

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We have a featured guest blogger. He has experience with bucket truck winches and has created the Internet’s first manual for using/ maintaining a winch on a bucket truck.

Introduction

I’ve pulled three trucks back onto the road with our backhoe or tractor in the last five years. A bucket truck van driver told me he can go almost anywhere because of the weight of his truck, but a wet grassy slope and worn tires can leave you stuck. We bought an F-450 flatbed bucket truck for outside building maintenance, minor tree work, Christmas light displays and hauling pallets of sod and stone. Since we intend to use it off-road the light 9,000 lbs. weight was a real plus, while the three ton flatbed capacity lets us carry two pallets of sod or a pallet of stone without difficulty. But I’d hate to pay to have our bucket truck winched back onto the road; the closest towing company said that they can’t do it, and they charge $128 per hour.

 

Choosing a Winch

The rule of thumb for choosing a self-recovery winch is 1.5 times the weight of your truck. At that rate the cost of a 20,000 to 30,000 lb. winch, a huge tree strap, snatch block and shackle might be enough to stop you from considering a self-recovery winch. (The shackle alone would cost $200.00.) Plus a big winch will suck the life out of a 650 CCA class 65 battery and your alternator. Tow trucks get around the electrical problem by using hydraulic winches, but for the occasional user they are dangerous. An electric winch will stall, burn up or trip a breaker before the capacity of the winch is exceeded. A hydraulic winch will just run slower and slower until something breaks with disastrous results! There is a better way to look at it though.

The 1.5 rule of thumb is a good one for off-roader with fat tires buried up to the transfer case in mud halfway down a hillside. A competent bucket truck operator is going to avoid driving onto a steep slope and if you have a winch hanging from the front of your truck you probably won’t “dig yourself in”. The rolling resistance of our truck is small on smooth asphalt but don’t skimp based on that; soft ground makes a world of difference. Get a winch about the same rating as your truck’s curb weight. Make sure it can use a wireless remote to keep you out of harm’s way and a roller fair lead to guide the rope if you have to begin a recovery operation at a sharp angle.

. You might have read not to choose a permanent magnet motor winch but I haven’t found one in the capacity needed for bucket truck recovery. Likewise, line speed will not vary much in huge series wound motor winches with planetary gears; 4.5 to 6 ft. per minute at full load on the first layer to 9 to 10 fpm on the outside layer. But you’ll have almost half the rated pulling power on the outside layer. Brakes all seem to be inside the drum and sliding ring gear clutches are usual.

You’ll need a snatch block and shackle with twice the capacity of the winch. A snatch block doubles the power of your winch (minus some losses), so a 20,000 winch would give you about of 36,000 lbs. of pulling power. Keep that in mind when you start rigging recovery lines.

You’ll need a tow (or load) strap made of polyester. Yup, that soft fabric that leisure suits were made of is ideal for a winch. A nylon strap is NOT! Nylon is strong but too stretchy. Forty feet of nylon under 40,000 lbs. of force would whip your winch and bumper (assuming you didn’t reinforce it) right into your neighbor’s yard. A tow strap will protect whatever you wrap it around from being damaged. They are light in weight, abrasive and UV resistant and much less expensive than grade 72 or 80 chain. Tow straps can be bought up to twelve inches wide.

You’ll need a heavy dampener, such as a heavy throw rug or commercial. foam-backed carpet remnant, to hang over the center of your rigging to dampen the rope in case of a failure. The dampener provides drag on a flying winch rope, reducing its movement.

 

 

Maintenance

We’ll start with maintenance first because a winch is not ready to use right out of the box. Before a recovery attempt is made the winch rope must be free-spooled all the way out (to the safety mark) then wound in with as much resistance on the wire rope as you can provide. (I pulled our F-450 up a grade in a soft meadow.) Wear leather gloves whenever handling wire rope.

While re-tensioning your winch rope you must keep the wraps tight, forcing them against one another with a wooden (not metal) lever. Re-tensioning will give you the opportunity to become familiar with your winch and verify that the components and your installation work properly. There is an exception to the necessity of re-tensioning a winch rope: all winches only provide the maximum force from the first wrap around the drum. If you haven’t re-tensioned your winch and need to do a serious recovery operation – spool the cable out to the end (to the safety mark on the  rope), using a snatch block if necessary to use up the excess wire rope, and begin recovery. It is not necessary to keep the wraps perfect during recovery, and it is dangerous being in line with the winch rope with it under a large load, so use your wireless remote and stand beyond the full reach of your rigging. Clean and re-tension the winch after recovery.

Our winch manual says to periodically lubricate steel ropes with penetrating oil; wrong! What they mean is lubricate it with a light oil that penetrates the wire rope. You will read many opinions recommending: motorcycle chain oil, chainsaw bar oil, used oil, etc. My guess is the authors used what they had on hand, it worked, so they stayed with it. You might also have noticed dry rusty wire rope and greasy, dirty wire rope on commercial equipment; there is considerable leeway regarding what works. If you want to keep your expensive investment safe and looking and working like new, 5 to 20 weight motor oil will do the trick; multi-viscosity engine oil is fine.

You will have to refer to you winch operators manual for periodic maintenance of the motor, clutch, drum, etc. Check electrical connections regularly for tightness and corrosion.

…to continue to part two of our manual about self-recovery winches for bucket trucks

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