Hydro winch install musings

[FridgeFreezer]

Looking down the to-do list for the 109 I note that I've had an H14W PTO-driven hydraulic winch sat in the workshop waiting for a round tuit for some years now.

However, despite buying the full setup (twas a bargain), there's a load of things about it that I think I'd probably want to change or improve so I thought I'd start a thread to try and thrash some stuff out and draw on the collected wisdom of the forum.

So, what I've got in the shed;

• H14 winch, which is a 48:1 worm-gear driven behemoth of a thing with a standard keyed input shaft to accept drive from a hydraulic motor or PTO directly
• A PTO mounted hydraulic pump 22.84cc/rev
• A hydraulic motor 27cc/rev
• A control valve block
• A heap of old hoses that will not be re-used
• A hydraulic tank that may or may not get used

Specs seem to differ - the old manual states a 2500psi pressure, Superwinch's old datasheet says 2250 and the shiny new PDF version says a mere 2000... a friend who knows such things reckoned on a 20,000lb pull out of these if the pressure relief / PTO overload is wound up a bit but I haven't done the maths, and it feels a bit excessive.

Quote

Model Designation
H14W Pro
Rated Line Pull, Bottom Layer 59.02 kN (6,020 kg)
Line Speed, Bottom Layer, (No Load) 3.6 m/min
Wire Rope Diameter, Recommended 13 mm
Wire Rope Length, maximum 30 m
Drum Dimensions 117mm dia x 290mm long
Weight, Winch only 52.5 kg
Maximum Oil Pressure 140 bar (2,050 psi)
Maximum Oil Flow 60 l/min
Line Pull, 2nd Layer 49.3 kN (5,030 kg)
Line Pull, 3rd Layer 42.2 kN (4,305 kg)

 

Now, there's a few issues with this setup as it stands;

• It's a lot of plumbing
• It's PTO-driven which means the winch will be insanely slow unless I'm in 4th or 5th gear
• I'm not sure where it will all fit

There's also a few questions, such as if the tank is in the back & the pump's in the middle, does that cause an issue when the tank is below the pump on a slope?

My current thinking is that I'd like to mimic Mouse's setup which used a miniature driveshaft off the crank nose into a front-mounted pump with a dog clutch, that would allow more flexibility and put the pump very close to the winch motor, meaning a very short pipe run if the valve block can be squeezed in between them sensibly.

Reading up about pumps & motors it would be uber cool if I could use a variable-vane or similar style pump that can tolerate a range of engine speeds and trades flow for pressure, that would (I think) mean the winch runs faster when unloaded, allowing me to speed up what could be a quite ponderous winching experience - however, having googled the price of those things I may row that one back a tad unless one magically appears for the right price.

 

So - any hydraulical experts care to wade in with suggestions or thoughts?

I'm going to try measuring up to see how much room I've got  in the engine bay for pumps and the like.

H14W.pdf H14W_user_manual.pdf

[miketomcat]

Assuming a hydraulic H14 runs at similar speeds to a PTO 525, they're not as bad as you think. I run ours loaded in 2nd gear and there's probably not much between it and a 12000lb lowline. In fact the only reason I don't run it loaded in a higher gear is the shaft starts to whip. My point is whats the problem with running it in a higher gear? Unless you do something very clever your unlikely to be able to match wheel and line speed (not that you really need to with a H14) so why not just fit as is.

Mike

[Arjan]

Very interested in this as I have an H14 waiting for collection in Devon to go onto the OneTen.

Please, keep your ideas coming..

[elbekko]

Sounds like a thread for @Escape. He had, and again has on the new build, a serpentine-belt driven pump in place of the aircon compressor. From my understanding, there's only so much power you can put through a seperpentine belt, and that's pretty much a tradeoff of speed vs pulling power. So by sacrificing speed you can retain the pulling power.

The setup in Mouse was nice, but has the downside of a lot of custom components I think. The rad on the 109 is still in front, right? Then you suddenly have a pump fighting for space with a rad, doesn't sound ideal.
The winch in Mouse had a two-speed motor, which was excellent for spooling up rope. Nearly made me sprint if you put the revs up a bit

Do you really need a super-fast winch though? You're not doing winch challenges, and a few minutes of extra time spooling up rope vs a few grand extra for a fancy pump, I know which I'd choose It'll pull you through the bog or up a hill all day long anyway, might just take a little bit longer.

[mickeyw]

Watching with interest as I too have such a beast complete with PTO pump. I've been long harboring a plan for a full hydro setup that can run a winch plus external implements. Just the thing to do with a V8 LR 😎

Thoughts - the H14 is insanely heavy vs the Goodwinch TDS that's currently fitted to my 110, but let's not allow that to blow the vapour sideways.

Difficulties - my winch sits at a top of the bumper height, rather than the normal bottom of bumper position, and this obstructs the motor drive shaft.
The standard drive motor setup is designed to fit in a 4 cyl engine bay inside the N/S chassis leg. There are parts of the V8 engine fighting for the same piece of real estate. I believe your 109's engine sits rather more rearward than the Defender position, plus the recessed series front panel probably makes it easier for the motor placement.

I like your crank driven with dog clutch plan. I've seen this on numerous challenge trucks and it seems to work well but does need quite a bit of room.

Don't rule out belt driven pumps. Flowfit sell PTO setups for Transits that use a serp belt from the front of the engine, although I'm not sure how much grunt is needed to run a tipper body compared with a winch. Also seen Red winches that are run from a belt driven PTO.

[Bowie69]

Was gonna mention Red winches, they have some really nice kit that could simplify things a lot for you.

[FridgeFreezer]

So, just to catch folks up with a few of the reasons for the direction I want to go;

The engine in the 109 sits a fair way back and the rad sits high up so I have a large space in the front that's inline with the crank, whereas due to the Series engine bay I do not have a lot of space to add a belt-driven pump on the engine and do not really want to go that way as you're limited on the HP you can get through a belt.

Winch tray + x-member - the H14 sits no further forward than a standard Series bumper.

 

Engine position - you can see there's a goodly amount of space to be used. Rad sits on top of the winch x-member.

 

@miketomcat the only real reason was for wheel assist, regardless how strong the winch I feel like there's times when turning the wheels at the same time is helpful in a recovery.

@elbekko  the crank-driven pump was only 1 mini-prop bolted to the crank pulley, that then picked up on the pump & standard dog clutch mounted in front.

I really liked the 2-speed motor in Mouse, I'll have to chase up Mikko who designed the setup (and indeed made the winch) to see if he can remember what he did!

This isn't about making it fast - an H14 with 50:1 gearing is never going to be fast - it's just about making it as practical as it can reasonably be. Being able to re-spool a bit more rapidly than ~4m/min might be quite handy a lot of the time.

 

15 minutes ago, mickeyw said:

Thoughts - the H14 is insanely heavy vs the Goodwinch TDS that's currently fitted to my 110, but let's not allow that to blow the vapour sideways.

Just googled it - it's ~5Kg lighter than a Gigglepin, I'll take that for 14k pull all day long and no brake to explode

 

@Bowie69 if red do anything useful they don't mention it on their website as far as I can see?

 

One potential wrinkle to using a crank-driven pump is that I'd have a PTO left over, if I was being really flashy I might mount a hydraulic motor to the PTO and use it as a hydraulic underdrive... just a thought

 

All this said, given the likely use, it will probably be used 90% or more for recovering others, but I'd still like to see what can be reasonably done to improve it just for interest if nothing else.

[Blanco]

My rear PTO adapter and pump came from First Four Offroad, back in the day ......(sadly no longer possible).... I never got round to hooking up the H14 I have as the X9 did such sterling service. But my pump was 56cc/rev and used to run the crane in 2nd gear at tickover very well, for the 15t log splitter I did use about 1500rpm. I seem to remember that the pump had a relatively modest rpm limit and of course couldn't be run in reverse, an issue you wouldn't have off the front of the engine.

If speed is an issue much larger pumps than the one you currently have are I am sure  available with the same interface, but looking at the space you have crank driven seems the way to go.

 

[Bowie69]

43 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

if red do anything useful they don't mention it on their website as far as I can see?

They do a lot more than what they show on their site, e.g. Lexus A340 gearbox to LT230 adapters.... probably worth an email.

[Nonimouse]

Red do  some lovely things, but all very , very , very expensive and I for one wouldn't buy from them (even if I had the money) on moral grounds.

These boys design and fit commercial set up for vehicles - including all those nice Land ROver 110's and 130's used by electricity companies. As they are SOmerset based, they are warm, pleasant and generous with infomation and not too expensive: https://www.rotec.net/

[simonr]

16 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Reading up about pumps & motors it would be uber cool if I could use a variable-vane or similar style pump that can tolerate a range of engine speeds and trades flow for pressure, that would (I think) mean the winch runs faster when unloaded, allowing me to speed up what could be a quite ponderous winching experience - however, having googled the price of those things I may row that one back a tad unless one magically appears for the right price.

Variable displacement pumps are quite common industrially.  I once found one on a Bin Lorry at a scrap-yard, attached to the crank.  Unfortunately it was fed by 2" hoses, which I thought might be a bit excessive in a Land Rover!  Normally they're a swash-plate design with an actuator which varies the angle of the swash plate through another feed of hydraulic pressure.

One big advantage, along side the variable speed, is not needing a clutch to connect it to the crank.  Just set a zero angle on the swash plate & it doesn't pump at all.

Worth a look on eBay I guess!

[FridgeFreezer]

I was hoping you'd join in this thread Simon - TBH if I can find a pump like that (maybe a tad smaller!) my hope is that being able to physically put it right next to the motor means the issue of an octopus of hydraulic hoses snaking around the truck can be somewhat reduced, although the positioning of the hydraulic tank is still a concern.

Annoyingly I have a couple of brand new gear pumps that came out of the lab (not sure of exact spec) but the variable types feel like a much better fit, being able to vary flow/pressure with demand seems very sensible.

[uninformed]

18 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

They do a lot more than what they show on their site, e.g. Lexus A340 gearbox to LT230 adapters.... probably worth an email.

They are concentrating on electric and have discontinued one of their two Hydraulic winches (of course the one I wanted) 

Edited October 1, 2022 by uninformed

[FridgeFreezer]

Honestly for the prices of some stuff I could justify upping my budget for a milling machine and just making the parts myself.

[uninformed]

10 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Honestly for the prices of some stuff I could justify upping my budget for a milling machine and just making the parts myself.

The reality is I’ll just be cleaning up my old Mile Maker and using that. PTO pump ~60Ltr/min. Unlike your worm wheel gear, I had to fit a double over centre valve for braking in case of line loss. 
 

Id be happy with a single speed gearbox as high is never used. 

[B reg 90]

Go for a bent axis piston motor on the winch - you can get 8,00 to 10,000 RPM out of them. A bit like this:

 

 

To keep weight down you need to run high pressures, like 400 BarG. That forces you to use fancy valve blocks and the like. 

[B reg 90]

 

This is/was my project with the winch - chronic fatigue kind of stopped the job 10 years ago.....

[FridgeFreezer]

34 minutes ago, B reg 90 said:

To keep weight down you need to run high pressures, like 400 BarG. That forces you to use fancy valve blocks and the like. 

Just worked that out as 5800psi I think if I can do higher flow low(er) pressure I will just to keep the hardware sensible.

Thanks for the write-up though, I will read with interest.

[FridgeFreezer]

I have to say, this sort of proximity is what I'm hoping for, short runs for pipes etc. keeps things sweet;

[B reg 90]

Lower pressures drive a bigger pump to deliver the torque you need. Think you will end up at either slow speed and lw pressure or higher speed and higher pressure

[Blanco]

Also bear in mind fluid temperatures, putting a lot of horsepower into the winch to get up to wheel speed is going to warm the fluid up quite nicely, short pipework pump to motor is great but a longer run back to a remote reservoir, particularly in rigid pipe can be advantageous from a cooling point of view.

[B reg 90]

I was going to run without an oil tank.....

Suppose I'd better justify that. Oil tanks do the following for you:

• Allow oil to de-aerate
• Allow for oil expansion when hot
• Act as a means of increasing the oil volume such that the bulk oil temperature does not rise as fast as it would in a closed loop circuit. This means that you can size a cooler for the normal duty point and allow short term higher duty points to be absorbed by the bulk oil. The cooler then lowers the temperature later when the duty cycle returns to the lower normal.

What they don't do:

• Radiate much heat. If your duty is continuous then the cooler has to be rated to remove the heat input. If not after OOM a few minutes the oil will overheat. A bigger oil tank will not meaningfully increase cooling, but it will result in the time to overheat increasing. Not much use if your duty cycle is a constant 100%.

'Most' hydraulic systems are either static or bolted to slow speed industrial excavators and the like. Basically, little shaking and movement of the tank. In a 4x4 (especially at speed) the oil in the tank will be thrown all over the place. So, in my opinion the main function of de-aerating the oil will be compromised in a 4x4.

I'd like to claim the inspiration for the way I had intended to go, but it came from a 'Pirate4x4' thread - 'Hydrodynamic buggy'. The build thread seems to have been deleted. But look here for a full hydraulic drive crawler (Hydro motor at each wheel, engine driving a BIG pump only). See links below & search for hydrodyamic buggy on Pirate.

Why point you too this, well the circled device in the screenshot is the 'oil tank' (it's not a tank - it is just a fluid expansion tank and air catcher):

 

Basically, oil is drawn from the expansion device, goes to the pump, pump discharge goes directly back, via a cooler, to the expansion tank. It is fully closed loop; the expansion device is just a 'bulge' in the return line that easily allows for any heat derived expansion. It also acts as a high point for any air, but once the system is set up and fully purged of air then it will be fully air free. The cooler needs to be rated to the max duty cycle though. However, if it can be made to work taking the full power output of a 6.0 ltr V8 without overheating, then it will work with a small hydraulic pump. 

 

What is the advantage:

1/. Lower weight

2/. oil aeration is not possible

3/. System will work at any angle

 

Links to buggy info:

Off-Roading On Another Level: Jeff Friesen's Hydrodynamic Buggy (offroadxtreme.com)

 

 

Adrian

Edited October 2, 2022 by B reg 90
grammar

[Blanco]

Wow, that's quite a beast!  .... And interesting about the cooler only circuit design, I've never come across it before but it makes total sense. 

[FridgeFreezer]

9 hours ago, Blanco said:

Also bear in mind fluid temperatures, putting a lot of horsepower into the winch to get up to wheel speed is going to warm the fluid up quite nicely, short pipework pump to motor is great but a longer run back to a remote reservoir, particularly in rigid pipe can be advantageous from a cooling point of view.

I'd rather have short pipework and be able to add a cooler in a manner of my choosing than a huge octopus of pipework and probably still need to fit some cooling in somewhere...

Adrian - I thought I remembered the buggy but that's a different one, the one I remember was a similarly mad thing which or some reason used a Datsun 280Z motor. Both are going way back though!

[uninformed]

Hydrodynamic started that buggy with a Datto engine.