Winch Cable Breaking-Help!!!

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#11

11-08-2010, 01:26 PM

beergut

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Quote:

Originally Posted by dakotagun

It must've been a combination of things that led to my cable breaking - the rollers appeared to be very rough, probably from running the plow when the previous owner used it for his parking lot, so i replaced the fairlead.
Cable snapped a few inches up from the end, twice, so this time I also put a 'winch line saver' on it, too, to help prevent running the cable in too far.

Lastly, don't know how old the cable was, as i had bought the unit used. There must've been less than 15 feet remaining on the winch, so the cable had snapped xx times before i started using it. Hopefully i won't be messing with the setup in the middle of a blizzard like i did last year...

standard length for a steel winch cable is 50'- My advice would be to purchase a new steel cable from ebay ($15-$30) and install the new cable on your winch drum. DONT CUT THE CABLE and use a cable tie- they always fail. The new cable will have the ferrule already crimped on it. There was an issue with your old cable for sure- a 3/16th steel cable is rated around 4700 lbs and a 1/4 around 6000lbs- so your winch would torque out, the ferrule would slip off or your front end would cave in before you snapped a steel cable that's in good shape- especially just lifting an 80lb plow blade. It sounds like your last cable was badly streched or corroded.

Unless money isn't an issue go with a new steel cable- if you have a few more bucks to spend then go with a synthetic rope.