zardos

Drive assist is very important in helping not pulling your tyres off when winching sideways and it also makes it easier to pull sideways when you can drive to spin the wheels when winching.

Hence my thinking why don't people use double braided rope? Which is supposed to have better wear resistance due to the tougher (but less strong) outer braid and the tighter braiding of the outer material. I believe that all rock climbing rope is double braided due to the increased wear when rubbing on rocks.

It sounds to me that even though you say buy once, buy right you would be better off with buying twice,once now and once in a year of two when you have saved up the money. The down side of this approach is that you will probably need 2 bumpers as well. For electric buy a cheap winch now, and then save up for a gigglepin twin motor and decent batteries when you want to compete (probably around £4.5k for winch, batteries, cable and bumper) Also in 2 years time winches will probably have advanced in design a bit as well. As for Electric vs Hydraulic, my thoughts are Electric Pros Easy basic setup. Winch will pull when the engine is not running (I've even winch bump started my vehicle) I think they have a better safety cut off system (most hydraulic setups I've seen permanently run the pump which can caused increase wear if not using it a lot) Winch and drive are independent of each other (some but not all hydraulic system are winch or drive not both) Electric Cons Lower maximum winch duration, but you are very unlikely to reach it in a competition i.e. Max twin motor current draw is probably around 1000Amps - Alternator output say 100 Amps = 900 Amps 200 Amp Hours of batteries is probably going to give you a usable 100 Amps Hours or 6000 Amp Minutes 6000 /900 = 6.67 Minutes (recharge when not winching / getting to next pull / setting up next pull). Which is more than enough to winch in 125ft of rope and you are very unlikely to use anything near to the max load (my guess is more like 200 - 400 Amps) They are ways to increase the alternator output if required, so not really a con. Hydraulic Pros Variable speed winching Better winch breaking Maximum winch duration limited by your fuel tank size. Hydraulic Cons Limits the engine revs when winching (can blow the pump seals when over rev'ing pump) A more complicated setup I'm sure that other people can add to the pro's and con's list.

This happened just after all the engine mounts had been replaced, the first breakage was before the engine mounts where replaced. Note the bit that has broken off is inside the bell housing so unlikely to be hit by the axle. The solenoid position has always been this way (on the bottom) for this engine. Also there are no gaps between the bell housing and the engine.

I've been thinking, what is the main cause of rope failure, is it abrasion? (probably not heat as a lot of winches are of the 8274 design with the brake on the side) All these rope tend to get a bit fluffy after use. I've heard of multi layer ropes where the outside layer is not so strong but is a more abrasion resistant material. Or you can get nylon sleeving for abrasion protection. Has anybody thought of covering the entire rope is something like heat shrink tubing for protection? PS I would now go for 12mm on a twin motor winch as I've snapped a hardly used 11mm Plasma on a rear winch on a straight pull. My thinking is that 11m Plasma has a breaking strength of 21,000lbs. A normal winch from Warn can pull up to 9,000lbs but one with twice the motor power and potentially lower gearing (smaller winch drum) you could get very close to maximum breaking strength of a new rope. After a bit of googling something like http://www.samsonrope.com/index.cfm?rope=148&inst=1

My 3.9 V8 has started eating starter motors for breakfast Any ideas why it is doing this to starter motors? It's the second one that has snapped the nose cone off (note this vehicle does get used off road but it looked fine when is was removed a few days before it broke)

Many thanks to Nick for running such a good event, much enjoyed even though my engine decided it wanted to try and escape from the punishment I was giving it, I also think that the clutch and start motor also decided they had had enough on Sunday :-( Also thanks to MJA Landrover for the excellent parts delivery service and Dom my co-driver.

Some pictures

Yes I have a southdown snorkel fitted with north offroad challenge wings on the drivers side (v8). I'll do pictures tomorrow as I'll have to take off the wing top (a few screws) to show better pictures. Basically it's in the centre of V of the top on the wing (we had to remove one of the wing top mounting plates) and cut a hole in the checker plate and weld a bracket to the cage.

My solution Cut 3 squares of a standard length waffle board and they fit inside my external cage and are held on by bars welded to the inside and outside of the cage tube (only works with 38mm waffles). I did first have the bars welded to some U bolts clamped to the cage but they kept getting ripped on on trees. A 4ft Highlift will just fit back to front from bulkhead to rear door, mounted via some bolts to the wheel box. I also have a large 50mm, 1ft longer than standard on the roof. The orange ones also did a bonnet mounting system I seem to remember.

Only one Pic

Many thanks to Simon for standing in at late notice and being my co-driver. He did an astounding job for his first challenge event. Also many thanks to Lee for arranging Simon as my co-driver. I had a great time, unfortunately my car had a minor overheating problem (which meant we had to stop every so often to let it cool down )

Not a Ranjie but for a Defender most winch bumpers use the standard bolts which are 4 of M10 X 130mm DIN931 Grade 8.8 (vertical through the chassis) + 2 others horizontal through the chassis that look the same size an type. You could go to Grade 12.9 for extra strength but these are usually Allen Key drive and usually not cheap and my local specialist supplier (http://www.orbitalfasteners.co.uk/) does do them long enough.

Why waste a battery on just starting the car, all the running load usually comes from the alternator (with winches being the exception as they will draw more than the alternator will supply). You only need starting capability if you are very good at stalling it and then you won't need a fully charged battery. I would just run the two batteries in Parallel, I think split charge systems are good if your second battery is a leisure type battery for running things like fridges. They are not useful for running Winches, especially when you are running a 100Amp alternator (I think that you could melt a split charge relay that is not rated to your alternator output with a winch).

Have a look at www.firwood.co.uk they do some good solvent based paints (non of this water based rubbish ) Have a look at http://www.firwood.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10601&storeId=10001&productId=36901&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=12268 Quote:- Recommended Use For use on surfaces likely to be exposed to weak/medium strength acids and alkalis. Also recommended for applications subject to a chemically laden atmosphere or in a coastal environment. Can be applied to both steel and concrete substrates. Hazard Information Flammable Irritant Dangerous for the environment

All Fixed now. Replaced with a non faulty alternator. Thanks for the suggestions.

After my alternator bearing seized and snapped the drive belt I need to replace my alternator (A 100Amp multi V drive belt type). With the job finished I started the vehicle to find the ignition warning lamp on and battery voltage unchanged. I double checked both connections for cleanness and tightness and all looks good. The old alternator was charging fine up to the point it seized and the belt snapped. I am seeing 14+ volts between the alternator stud and earth on the body when running. The main alternator power cable is showing 13+ volts when disconnected from the alternator and not running ( indicating a good connection to the battery ). Any Ideas Please

I run 2 lockers and 2 air free spool winches without a problem (though something could be better done with the connections at the compressor instead of 2 Y pieces) As the ARB compressor is only 25% duty cycle it's not good at producing air for a very long time (10 minutes on then 30 minutes off), for tyres I use a truck air which has a slightly lower cfm output but has a 100% duty cycle ( so continuous use is OK). You would probably only manage pumping up 1 possible 2 large tyres before you need to give it a 30 minute rest. As for how reliable are Air Free spool winches, I've had a few problems with mine but you need to know how to use them properly (and I was probably not using them properly). Jim is usually good at getting them sorted and has some uprated components now which makes them better. At least the housings are much stronger than a standard Warn bottom end and don't shatter like my brother's did.

70mm2 is not belt and braces for a twin motor winch (each motors max load is 500Amp for a 9500 lbs line pull), it would be just OK for a single motor winch. Things to remember though:- That's max load, how often do you hit that and for how long, probably not that often and not for long. With twin motors, your max load doubles but on the same load it will draw about the same current. As for isolators, I have melted the Durite one as it's only 250A continuous and it's easy to winch for more than 5 seconds. Having said all this about max load and continuous load I also have run 70mm2 extra flex cable on twin motors without any problems other than getting vaguely warm (not enough to melt).

Check out Ashcrofts pages http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/part_13.html Give them a call to see what they can do.

For winching it is generally the rule to use separate + and - wires with cheaper winches coming with 35 sq mm wires but if you have a serious winch and use it hard then there is no wire big enough for the max load (you need a 150 sq mm solid bus bar).

It might help if you give some more details on the engine as diesel starter motors tend to draw more starting current than petrol. Also do you have any high load devices (winch, inverter, lots of lights) wired via this cable you want to replace. Can you not measure the diameter of the old wire? and then convert with simple maths to sq mm. Generally I believe that 40 sq mm is commonly used for battery cables (good for around 300 Amps continuous) Note that a starter motor can draw up to 600 Amps peak but a more common use case is around 300 Amps (but again only for a short period of time). Other info that might help decide on the size is a lot of the FIA master switches are rated 100 Amp continuous 500 Amp peak this would suggest 16 sq mm (110 Amp continuous) But I would not go anything less than 25 sq mm

That number is probably the number of cylinders, you have it set to a 1 cylinder engine. Set it to 4 (3500/4 = 875) which is about the correct idle speed.

My photos @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/11228019@N05/...57621754598525/

I've looked at a twin alternator setup but I've not found I need it, even though I run twin motor gigglepin winches in front ant rear. But then I run twin exide maxxima's (50Amp hous each) and a optima PC2250 (126Amp hours). My alternator is a standard 100Amp for a V8 Putting a single big alternator on reduces the low speed Amp output of the alternator so you have to rev the engine more and they are very expensive to get another 50Amp. Also some people go for 2 different banks of batteries one for the winches and one for the engine, but this wastes a lot of potential as the alternator charging the engine battery only needs to output about 8 Amps. I found a system to run 2 alternators on one battery bank (http://www.adverc.co.uk/product/18), designed for twin engine boats and high electrical demand vehicles like ambulances. As for mounting the second alternator I only seen to done on a 2.8 tgv engine, not a TD5