winch & transmission

can i winch break the vehicle transmission and how to use correctly in sand

how would a winch break your transmission? what do you mean?

i dunno but i heard from friends if you pull heavy cars it might break your gear is that right

The weakest link on a high rated high quality winch, such as a 12K warn winch, is it's cable. It does not affect your transmission whatsoever, unless you are trying to drive the truck while winching (not really a good idea)

ok then if i keep my transmission on park thats fine??

Use your intuition. If you're winching out of something either forwards or backwards, drive and park are ideal. If you're winching someone out, park, drive, and reverse are all ideal depending on the situation. If you figure that park is the the best, make sure you put the parking brake on as well.

Nevertheless, your transmission shouldn't be on the top of the "things to worry about list." I'd be more worried about steering components such as a broken tie rod or something.

//EDIT// Whoops! Can't believe I told you to winch yourself out in drive or park...

The bold part should say: If you're winching out of something either forwards or backwards, drive and reverse are ideal.

Maybe he's talking about a winch running off a PTO rather than the standard electrical winch most of us would assume?

If that's the case, I'm pretty sure a Raptor doesn't even have a PTO hookup.

Dane said:

Maybe he's talking about a winch running off a PTO rather than the standard electrical winch most of us would assume?

If that's the case, I'm pretty sure a Raptor doesn't even have a PTO hookup.

Click to expand...

That's what I'm thinking too.

uaq: are your friends talking about hydraulic winches? If so, that's a whole 'nuther ball of wax that like Dane says, our Raptor's aren't set up from the factory for anyway (to the best of my knowledge). If they're talking about electric winches, you have nothing to worry about (except like Humvee says to use your intuition as to which gear makes sense depending on which direction your winching).

I guess I hadn't thought of that...

uaq69 said:

ok then if i keep my transmission on park thats fine??

Click to expand...

Thinking back to my Jeep days, I would never winch in park.

If doing a self-recovery, the whole purpose is for the vehicle to move. If you left it in park, I imagine that the winch would easily break the parking prawl if the rear tires had sufficient grip. I use neutral if operating the winch from outside (rare) and 1st gear low range if operating the winch from the seat (normal). Easy on the throttle so that you never get any slack in the winch line...

If recovering another vehicle I only do it from my driver's seat, with the transmission in neutral, and holding the brakes. That way all four tires are holding and I can immediately feel any slip.