Hybrid_From_Hell

Tonk u can't knock hydraulic stuff mush, .................... don't forget your "Whizzy" steering system B) Nige

Cols110.............., A husky looks positively "super rapid" in comparison ! Nige

Er...is that cos you've had a little whine ? So sorry, I've got me coat........................................ Nige

Nice work, like the marine switching, where did that come from ? Neat job, when the testuing start B) Nige

Hmmmmmmmmm Odd Have sent to you on e-mail as my host seem to have closed for technical servicing ! Nige

1st one done, will dig out and post tommorow maybe the "How to fit a MM to the rear and have PTO powered" "How to fit an Air Clutch" for MM freespool.... Moved the 1st post rather smartish TC ! Nige

Heres the 1st. Basics of Hydraulic winches. I have had a number of PMs asking me similar questions around hydrauilc winches, so I thought it might be useful to do a post which covers many of these basic questions, and gives the reader a simple and basic understanding of how they work, .......and what the process is to fit, pros cons and options. It is fair to say that the below comments are very basic, ...........and those who have a high level of knowledge would argue that these comments are not 100% correct, ...........true, ...............but they are true in SIMPLE terms, ..............and as such easy to understand, ie the comment about FLOW = Speed and PRESSURE = Pulling Power is in really simple terms true, but in more complex discussions there is a correlation, and a link between the 2, and that would be a long lengthy and incomprehensible post at best, .......as such bear in mind the notes below are simple and easy and basic, if you wnat more detail then feel free to ask. Ok Hydraulic winches. Pros. IMMENSELY POWERFULL, frankly they will against the majority of winches pull, all day, and work non stop, at maximum power, and handle it, some would say that the MileMarker will pull all day cos its that slow it will need all day, and to a degree that is true. Reliable, and simple (but ONLY once you have installed it) simple is terms that there is little to go wrong, and they are relaible .........with a minimum of maintenance keep the oil checked clean change, change filter and ....thats about it !. More power and speed can be gained by upgrades, and the electrical problems that cause headaches for so many electric winches do not exist. Cons. Complex to fit, .............very complex to fit. .................. NOT a '1/2 day and done', even the MM kits take time to sort, custom kits....aaargh , well my front took 3 months !... Cost. .............And its a big one, ..............do NOT think these little gems are cheap. Custom stuff like mine is just madness !. Its not that the parts are expensive, actaully hydraulic bits are quite cheap, but the AMOUNT of bits you'll need is amazing !..Oh and a superwinch H14W Hydraulic kit for a 90 / 110 / 130 is..... £6500 + vat (yes you read that correctly) Take unions for example, £5 each average for a 90 degree bend, then you'll need a ferrule (the part that goes on the outside and is crimped to the hose with the union on the inside) £1, then say couple of quid for them to crimp it.... I have on my front winch 14 of these.....Hose £6-8 per metre - I used 18 metres, and so it goes on.... Dead engine, = dead winch, ALL hydraulic PTO and PAS or Crank driven units become useless when dead engine, many will argue that an electric winch with no engine won't pull for long, but, and its a key one............... it WILL pull at least for some time / power. Speed, the main reason many knock the poor old MileMarker, ...............but it not something that is not fixable....but at a cost ................both money wise and timewise. Rarity, for every 40x electric winches, theres maybe 1 Hydraulic.....the reasons are combinations of the above......... Dangerous. Hydraulic fliud under say 2000- 35000 psi will.... if a pipe fractures .....cut through right through your clothes, your skin and through your bones, DO NOT EVER HAVE HIGH PRESSURE PIPES INSIDE THE CAB - EVER Drive assist, some say drive assist was introduced to help poor powered electric winches do their job, .........and that Hydraulic don't need to have it as the power is just going to be more than enough, ...........true, BUT drive assist helps in POSITIONING your 4x4 in recovery, and although drive assist is very very if not next to impossible to do with hydraulic (or mechanical) it can be done to a degree partly, ...........but needs a lot of skill and practice, and sometimes even then doesn't always work ! So, if you have got this far and still fancy a Hydraulic unit what are the options ? MileMarker. Underestimated, will pull all day (yes I know it takes that long), they are DREADFULLY SLOW, period. They will pull when electric ones have given up, overheated, stalled or just plain stopped playing, ......................but BOY are they slow. Dedicated pump, ummmm yeah,............. bit like saying which way do you wnat to die,.... shot or poisoned, ?....neither is particualrly endearing, ................the dedicated pump is quicker,.......... but gawd its still dreadfully slow, ...............and frankly disappointing. PTO ?...ah ha B) NOW your talking, but you now into the cost (£350-450 for a PTO unit), sh rare, and complexity in fitting............... PTO driven is a whole different world. Throw away silly PAS pumps, and fit a BIG pump, now the MileMarker true potentail is released, .............and its fast, .............very fast, and don''t forget, electric winches slow down as the forces of winches kick in hydraulic don't, its the same speed for winching at max pull (almost) as freespooliong rope back on the drum !...oh and now with a PTO by choseing say 1 rather than 4 or 2 or 3rd gear at 1000 or 1500 rpm you can infinately control speed up or down, fast medium or slow for control..... So, that the background ...............whats a Hydraulic system made up of then ? Ok, using my "Thing" as an example here are the main components : TANK : Spool Block, or Control Block: 'Kin Thing' (Big Winch) : There are other things I have in my system, some are also in the above photos, but some I haven't done any photos.... PTO and Pump, Overcentre Valve, Pressure relief valve Oil Cooler. Ok, taking each of these in turn, and this set up is different to a MileMarker.......I will explain both, but mine 1st.... TANK. For a BIG POWERFUL & FAST Hydrualic winch you MUST have a tank. This is to keep the fliud cool, the more fliud you have on board the less likely it is to get hot. When oil gets hots it goes thinner, and when oil goes thinner the pressure dropsm, so JUST when you need maxium power from you winch the fliud gets hot, and the power drops.... All tanks are NOT equal, some are simple tanks, with a in and out, mine is a H14W H EB unit, .....posh ?.....yeh I would say............ It has a built in filter in the High Pressure line AND a filter in the low pressure return (if you go the route of a PTO conversion DO FIT AN IN LINE FILTER on the return pipe, HP Filters are horredously expensive 10 microns will be fine). It has an out to pump and a return, and inside is a work of art, returning oil, hot and thin, goes into a sub chamber leaking out into the main tank, where the new cool rethickened oil is taken from, and a swirl chamber under the pump pipe ensures fliud even when tank at silly angles...price new brace yourself ....£1280 + Vat....mine was SH and rare as hell ! Oil getting hot from winch really pulling means hot oil and pressure dropping etc It is directly proportional to the force apllied, so the harder the winch works, the hotter the oil gets, if a small capacity the oil can and will heat up and effect performace fast......add LOADS of oil (I have 33 litres capacity) and to heat this lot the winch has to really be worked, ...........and the oil cooler (in the return pipe) makes sure too !...flat out serious recovery for 1 hour and oil barely warm in the tank............. CONTROL BLOCK In simple terms a on / off / on lever. One "ON" is say backwards, and the other forwards, let go and it locks into neutral. Mine here is a TWIN spool block, ie to run 2 seperate units, my plan is to ultimately have a rear milemarker plumbed into the main system. It would be possible to use both at the same time, pulling or releasing, always fancied a 97 inch 90 ? The control block (and mine here is the example ) has a number of features. Ports. these are holes, in this coutry we use BSP, mine are 1/2 BSP (more later). On my block there are a number of these, they do the following, most blocks are similar. The 1st port is the P port. This takes in fliud FROM the pump, and is 1/2 BSP, on the opposite side is a port marked T, this is the Return to the tank, and is LOW pressure, so safe if it splits - messy but safe, this goes back to the return union on the tank. There are then 2 port under each of the 2 levers, they are basically exitentry ports. that is to say there is not an in and an out, it is how you plumb them in, you basically join these to the 2 ports on the winch, and start up and pull the lever, if the winch goes opposite to the rotation you would like swap the fittings and pipes around either the winch end of the block end, so in effect you just reverse it, in simple terms, these two ports are either fliud to winch and fliud return from winch OR fliud return from winch and fliud to winch. With a PTO system with the PTO enaged and the pump running if the lever is in neutral the fliud goes from the tank into the pump (through a bigger pipe (HUGE MINE IS 1 1/3 inches BORE !) from the pump to the Block, and if the lever is in neutral out of the block and lows to the return into the tank, the system is then self cooling even in neutral. When you pull the lever, the T is closed and port opened to the winch, this then drives the winch. WARNING, if the winch is used to a point where it exceeds the pressure of the fliud (more later) then you may blow a pipe (unless the pipes are well in excess of pressures, normally pipes that blow are chaffed damged in some way) or the seals in thw winch motor will come and see daylight, along with loads of oil under pressure. To AVOID this you must have a PRV - pressure relief valve, so that the pressure maximum is set to trigger a valve blow off which bypasses the port to to winch back to T and dumps excess pressure (the winch will still have as much pressure in it as the PRV allows) and fliud back to the tank. This is the silver pencil thingy sticking out of the control block...the other possiblity, is the pump pumps and pumps and pumps and then the pump shaft blows apart....this situation of seals letting go, pipes splitting and shafts breaking are nil with a PAS Powered MM as the forces are just not enough............. OVERCENTRE VALVE. This on mine is the silver lump on the drivers side of the winch wuith the 2 pipes going into it. In simple terms this is a one way 2 way valve. IF any pipe bursts this unit senses that the pressure has dropped, and then trips out, locking the fliusd in the winch and stopping it dead, without it no pressure mean say the winch is on a slope hanging on the rope, the pressure drops to zero, and the winch then unwinds yeeek ! Its therefore a 1 way valve, but works either forward or reverse, so it 2 way one way ! These are non fitted to a MileMarker, you can fit them, and if you do get it as close to the winch motor as you can..... Mine has an oil cooler, this extra bit of plumbing goes between the T on the spool block and the return to the tank line, another 8 metres of pipe and 4 unions etc........... Fliud....MileMarker use ATF why ?, cos that what a PAS uses. PTO systems use proper Hyd Oil EP32 in mine, all 33 litres of it, and it is the proper stuff, PAS pumps don't like it, which bring me to pressure and flow. PRESSURE is the part of the system that gives you the pulling power, think of a hose, turn on the tap ans it poors out of the end a few feet, shove you thumb over the end, same flow, but now you can jey the tree 30 foot away - pressure....as the pressure goes up, it pulls harder, this is actually the winch demanding more from the system to overcome the resistance, the PRV just stops the system self destructing... FLOW gives you speed, back to the hosepipe, turn the tap on a bit, the flow is low, increase the tap flow increases, thats what gives speed to a winch, and why the MM is so slow, the flow is pityfull, even the dedicated pump, much much better but cannot even come close to a PTO pump, and these come in differing powers to, 10-50 Litres Per Min (LPM), you must check the winch technical specs for nmaxium flow and pressures, mine is 2650 PSI and 50 LPM, a MM is 1750 PSI 18-25 LPM max, but this will be at 1000-1500 rpm dependant on pump set up.............. However, there is a link between pressure and flow but I am not going to cover in in any real depth here, only to say that if you go PTO and have 20 LPM or more you should up pipe size to 1/2 BSP INCLUDING ALL PORTS in the block, NOT 3/8s......1/2 will be ok up to 80+LPM !, and 1/2 BSP SYSTEM needs a pipe from Tank to PUMP of minimum 1" BSP ! What else ?... Rope ?....12mm plasma for this "Thing", MM use 11mm if PTO'd 10mm or even 9.5mm if PAS Ded Pump... Winch bumpers, 6mm minimum 8-10mm more sensible, lots of bracings, as these will pull fixings bumpers bolts apart for fun, I have re-infoerced the front of my chassis, the bumper base is 10mm, the front 8mm with a lip folded in at the top, 8mm sides, gussets everywhere and 12.8 ton bolts - all 28 holding the winch onto the bumper and the bumper to the front end..... When you have done the above, you can confidently do things like this (where a 8274 and a M1000 together had stalled- I didn't know, got flagged down, connceted nine and pulled - out she came !) Hydraulic power......................Love it B) Nige

Anyone know about these.? What are the diiferences, and why.? Is Zinc harder wearing than Nickel or Passivate, what are the pros and cons of each ? Need to know as I have the option of some old kit cheap ! Nige

Latest update, yell if anyone is missing ? Team 1 White 90 and Nick TangoMan Team 2 Trev LR90 and Adrian Turner ??? Team 3. Will W and Si White Team 4. Tonk & Perv Team 5. Paul W and Jim Marsden Team 6 Simon R & ??? Team 7. JST & ??? Team 8. "Team Anonimouse" (don't ask won't say so Neeer ) Team 9. Available Team 10. Available Nige

end over end, then side over side then hit tree, which was good, I think Damage - servere to Hybrid, Jon W briuses where full harness were, me same, and a spanner I had lost months prev "Found" the back of my head...glad it was only a 12mm one ! door open as bulkhead was bent back 5 inches out of true ! Nige

Tony, I'll dig up my posts from LRE and repost with the ophotos, this will take a while ! Posts would be Fitting a Hydraulic winch, pros cons and options. what to be aware of how it works, and what to consider Fitting a hybrid H14W Superwinch system to the "Thing" on the front Converting a MM to PTO drive, using 2 winches from 1 control box etc Making a rear MM installation Converting winches to Air Operated Clutch for freespool. If your ok and wnany all of these fine, if not save me some time as say which ones you don't wnat ! Nige

Good point, where abouts are you ? Oh and welcome too Nige

No worries..... Nope, more that he's not prob something to do with the fact he had a nasty roll, destroyed front end and bulkhead, now rebulit and in G4 Orange and all straight and new....oh, and now caged ....,.he would siut any neebie who fancied entering for fun and a laugh ? Nige Nige

JST I'll shove you down as a Team plus ????, then you can have a word around.... There is a HBRO Club membver who has asked to enter, has a Caged 90 softtop, with Front PTO Driven MileMarker (now, I wonder who fitted that then for him ? ) who alsio has not got a 2nd vehicle, he is more of a fun entrant looking to see how he can do rather than a blood guts and anything goes type,. Can put you in touch with him if you need a 2nd 4x4 ? Nige Teams now look like this : Team 1 White 90 and Nick TangoMan Team 2 Trev LR90 and ?? Team 3. Will W and Si White Team 4. Tonk & ?? Team 5. Paul W and Jim Marsden Team 6 Simon R & ??? Team 7. JST and someone to be found for 2nd 4x4 ?? Team 8. Available Team 9. Available Team 10. Available

Me too ! Nige

No probs, photographer good idea, but yer on foot old chap ! Nige

Love the Forum sub stickers / T Shirts, well worth pursuing ie I';d be happy to have a defender forum sticker as well as a forum sticker on my 90, really good idea the sub forum stickers / mechandise Nige

Erm.... Tinted Jeeez, and I've only just hung my coat back up again Nige

<cough> er had you down for that too <cough> nige

Its the 109 bit that will prob drag the price right down..... Pics might help with a clue to ££ ? Nige

Oh its so tempting to say something, Oooooooooooooooo na......... To do so woUld Really Be sO unfair now wouldn't it ?...... Coat on and running fast for cover Nige

Tell im its 'bling chrome', that will do it Ms got a point, ned to say what the stick is, so a tag line under it like LRA Best LR 4x4xforumxfar etc so people who see it know, aklso how are we doing on LRA going on searcgh engines so newbies find us ? Lastly, can't see the pics have red boxes ???? Nige

Simon A "Pot Hunter" is the type of idiot(s) who wants to win at all costs, ......... cheating, ignoring rules, jumping up and down and shouting when somethings "Not Fair", being basically a PITFA and normally they are dangerous in a 4x4 to boot ! Anyway, teams forming fast, have several club and club members entering, but forum wise it looks like this. Team 1 White 90 and Nick TangoMan Team 2 Trev LR90 and ?? Team 3. Will W and ?? Team 4. Tonk & ?? Team 5. Paul W and ??? Team 6 Simon R & ??? Team 7. Available Team 8. Available Team 9. Available Team 10. Available That will be it then - the offer list will close for a while whilst the remianing 15 team are offered to club members etc and Other ARC Clubs etc, if not fully taken there may be some more spaces.... Andy, your guaranteed a place as a HBRO member !, in next months mag to you..... <cough>Nigel T - Glad you volunteered, had you eared for the post anyway <cough> Les B - now Biatching for Tangoman Team 1. 'Eales 90 Passenger Seat' Booked for Michele ! Nige

Forum entries Team 1 White 90 and Nick TangoMan Team 2 Trev LR90 and ?? Team 3. Will W and ?? Team 4. Les B and ??? Team 5. Paul W and ??? I will suspend entries when I get to 8 forum teams (for a while), so as to give club and interclub members a chance to enter...later on after this has calmed down will then open up for a few more places If you miss the initail 8 team let me know and I'll then bear you in mind later............. Nige

Ok, so mainly road and some play days........ Axle articualtion is not a high priority, neither is soft springing etc, in fact for road use maybe the reverse. I had 235 85 16s on my 90, at this time the springs and shocks were std late 90 CSW (softer than early commercial 90 springing ....but still hard), and this means NO LIFT AT ALL : From this I worked out that I could with some major trimming of bodywork and arches get 34 x 10.50 x 16 Simex JTs on it.... again NO LIFT AT ALL: Then some months of thought and work, started the suspension mods : Whuilst this last photo might be of interest to you, the springs are now so soft that you couldn't use the 90 for picking up loads that with the std springs would be fine, the road handling is more wallowy....BUT NO LIFT AT ALL OMEs kit for a bit of lift decent rated springs and quality shocks is hard to beat, do be very aware and aviod "Cheap" deals, springs will sga, and it probably just won't sit level on fitting, and you will waste you money... If you can't afford to do it with decent brand stuff wait till you can....... HTH Nige