Garwood winch

[Tom_Averwater]

I have a Garwood 10,000 lb. winch that I would like to use on my 4610 Ford tractor .I would use the hydraulics on the tractor to power it.What speed do these winches run ? How big of a hydraulic motor would I need to run it?  Thanks Tom

[pineywoods]

Tom I have a big ole Koenig winch mounted on the 3 pt hitch on my kubota.I used a chain drive to a moderate sized hydraulic motor. You can use different sized sprockets to adjust the speed.  It will easily skid the 5000lb tractor with the brakes locked.

 

[timberfaller390]

You can use different sized sprockets to adjust the speed. 


(Image hidden from quote, click to view.)

you probably don't want to pull anything faster than walking speed (about2-3 MPH)

[thecfarm]

I would suggest having the controls for the winch on a rope so you can keep away from the tractor and winch when winching in.Have the winch stop when you release the rope.Alot of junk can come at you at times.Are you going to have the winch hooked up to the 3PTH to allow it to be lowered and raised?Could make a skid plate for it.Can be used to push logs around,but I like it to keep the tractor in place when winching.

[mike_van]

Tom, I built mine some 10 years ago using a Tulsa winch from a wrecker. I powered it with a hyd. motor, but was never really happy with how it ran. The IH 574 has a 12 gpm pump, but 3 gal are diverted for steering, brakes, etc. By the time you get through the plumbing, valve, etc, there might be 7 gpm at the remotes?  It ran pretty slow, if a log hung up, it would just stall. I had it for sale for awhile, a few lookers but no takers at 500.00  -  A few weeks ago, I put it in my shop, and after much thought, converted it to pto drive. The hyd motor had 200 rpm, now I have 540 if I want it. The power level increase is hard to believe. I pulled two 40' logs last week, both about 18", from 200' away [close as I could get] They came through some rosebush - honeysuckle jungle you couldn't walk through. One hung up in the bank when it came out, tried to pull the rest of the way with the tractor, but the wheels spun. Moved ahead 25', set up again, the winch pulled it right up & over.  One drawback is I no longer have a power reverse, so you can't put yourself where you can't back up to let the tension off if need be.  I've got a job soon with over 50 cord of locust to pull out, so it'll be a good test.  Oh, I'm real happy it didn't sell. 

[WH_Conley]

I have a Braden winch that I set like Mike did, with hydraulics. Also like Mike, it is now straight PTO. Just don't put it behind a stump to pull something big, if the drag gets behind another stump you are in trouble.

Tom, if you want to make a road trip you can come and look at my setup, we'll hook it up and you can see what it will do.

[John Mc]

you probably don't want to pull anything faster than walking speed (about2-3 MPH)

That's about the speed the Farmi Logging winches will pull.

[shinnlinger]

I like the idea of PTO power, and since weight and space isn't ussually an issue on the back of a tractor, could you put an auto tranny in there so you have reverse???  Isn't there some forward / reverse gearboxes out there?

[John Mc]

Do you actually need a powered reverse, or just a release? Something to let it freewheel would probably be easier to come up with. For that matter, some tractors PTOs are not locked in position when the PTO is shut off. Would that give enough of a release to get out of a trouble spot?

[mike_van]

I don't think a clutch or reverse is a 'gotta have', but it would be nice to have the option. My winch has 2 dog type clutches on the right side of the drum, in the picture where the lever is. You pull this to freewheel the drum & run out cable. With a good strain on it, I doubt you could pull that lever. 

       My pto, it's an independant one, won't freewheel more than one turn, even with the tractor off.  The worm drive winches tend to be self locking, the ring gear won't drive the pinion.  Just to try it, the first tree I winched out, i pulled it up too far - With tension on the cable, I was able to just pop the pto shaft off the back of the tractor, and turn it backwards by hand, it let the strain right off.  Just something I'll have to learn to live with -

[arojay]

If you are going to set up some kind of freewheel, you must have a brake.  If you suck up on something and go straight to freewheel you will spend the rest of the day unravelling cable.

[markct]

thats an interesting setup mike, just yesterday i made up a mount for a simular size holmes winch i had to mount it on the 3pt of our little ford NAA. its mechanical and has the freeweel as well as a forward and reverse incorporated into its gearbox so it was a simple matter of putting together a short pto shaft and then adding a long lever for the forward and reverse that i could reach from the tractor seat. across the bottom i put a large piece of angle iron to help dig in the ground and hold it in place when pulling. it will get its first test sometime this week dragging and loading some of the ash logs i got from a friends lot.

[John Mc]

... then adding a long lever for the forward and reverse that i could reach from the tractor seat

If you are operating it from the seat, I hope you've got some sort of safety screen or something to hide behind. A cable can do a lot of damage if it breaks under load.

[markct]

yea unfourtanatly to be able to run the clutch of the tractor thats where i gota be, but i do plan to put some sorta screen on eventualy, basicly this is sorta a quick throw together thing to avoid having to do so much work with a come along and to be able to have a bit better control pulling logs on the truck than we get with just driving the tractor along with the cable thru a snatch block since 1st gear isnt as slow as i would like when guiding a log with a bar! so no real hard pulls, and most of the time will be running thru a snatch block on the truck or yarding point to if the cable came unhooked from a log that should stop it before the hook end got to me, but still something to be cautious with indeed

[mike_van]

Mark, the guard I made on mine, you can see in this pic. 2" angle with expanded metal mesh. It could probably be bigger, but it's easy to add on to. 

  That fwd/N/rev on your winch is good, I saw another like it a few days ago.

[pineywoods]

pto vs hydraulic drive...   Go with the hydraulic if at all possible. You will need reverse/power out more often than you think. with ptoThink log hung on a root, cable tight as a fiddle string, no way to loosen it. Well, you can put the pto in neutral and get on the drive shaft with a pipe wrench  Don't need all that big a hydraulic pump or motor. I have snapped 1/2 steel cable with mine. 9gpm pump on a kubota.  with pto, you have a short drive shaft with some severe angles on the U joints. they will fail often. with pto you have no safety fuse. When something hangs, the weakest link will break, hopefully not the drive gears in the tractor tranny or the worm gear in the winch.  expensive Hydraulics will have a pressure relief that gives some protection. In either case, one other thing to keep in mind.....those old winches are worm drive, running in an oil bath. The worm needs to be immersed in oil, splash lube ain't good enough. So don't mount the winch with the input shaft on top. I ain't saying how I know

[dancan]

Good reading and insight .
I bought a similar winch with the same intentions of mounting on a pto .
What were the original uses of these winches 

I don't think a clutch or reverse is a 'gotta have', but it would be nice to have the option. My winch has 2 dog type clutches on the right side of the drum, in the picture where the lever is. You pull this to freewheel the drum & run out cable. With a good strain on it, I doubt you could pull that lever. 

(Image hidden from quote, click to view.)      -

[pineywoods]

re--original uses for these winches....Around here, every oil-field truck had one of these mounted right behind the cab. roller chain drive down to a shaft which ran underneath the truck to a pto on the side of the transmission. Usually a boom made from 3 pieces of oil-well pipe with a snatch block on top. Used for loading, unloading and setting up drilling equipment, and as a small general purpose crane.

[dancan]

It's the load/tension thing that made me wonder , how was tension released in it's original application ?

[pineywoods]

It's the load/tension thing that made me wonder , how was tension released in it's original application ?

pto's on most truck trannys are reversible.

[dancan]

It's the load/tension thing that made me wonder , how was tension released in it's original application ?

pto's on most truck trannys are reversible.

Thanks

[Larry]

pineywoods, I agree with everything you said about using a hydraulic motor...only problem I was never smart nuff to figure out what size it would take.

moderate sized hydraulic

Could you point me to the right size motor to use on my 30,000 pound Garwood?  Does Surplus Center sell a motor that would work?  I think it would be an easy and worth while conversion for me to make.

 

[pineywoods]

Could you point me to the right size motor to use on my 30,000 pound Garwood?  Does Surplus Center sell a motor that would work?  I think it would be an easy and worth while conversion for me to make.

Surplus center would definitely have anything you need.  If you can get your hands on one of their catalogs, there's some charts in there that compares various hydraulic motors with electric and gas. what you need is low speed high torque. I could go out to the mill and read the data plate on mine, but it's DARK out there and there's SKEETERS. I scrounged mine off an old truck tire changer and don't know right off hand. It's about the size of a large tin can. Took me 2 tries changing sprocket sizes to get it like I wanted.


UPDATE  The data plate is long gone. It's 3 inch dia, 6 inches long 1/2 pipe ports. I would estimate 100-150 rpm with 8 gpm flow. Plenty stout. I have busted roller chains and winch cable, never stalled the motor.

[Tom_Averwater]

Thanks for all of the replies .Now I have alot of of ideas to work with .

[MikeON]

The Vietnam era Deuce and a Half army trucks (M35A2) had Garwood 10,000 lb winches.  They were PTO driven.  The PTO had two forward speeds and one reverse.  A later version of the Deuce (M35A3) has the same winch with a hydraulic motor.

I have a Garwood 10,000 lb. winch that I would like to use on my 4610 Ford tractor .I would use the hydraulics on the tractor to power it.What speed do these winches run ? How big of a hydraulic motor would I need to run it?  Thanks Tom

[Kodiakmac]

Look, I'm an old dog who's been bush-whacking for longer than I want to admit...but you guys amaze me.  Really.

Any chance you could get together and come up with a simple design for a cheap, effective, home-made 3-point hitch skidding winch that any putz with average skills and a welder coud put together in a short time?  Seriously

[pineywoods]

Look, I'm an old dog who's been bush-whacking for longer than I want to admit...but you guys amaze me.  Really.

Any chance you could get together and come up with a simple design for a cheap, effective, home-made 3-point hitch skidding winch that any putz with average skills and a welder coud put together in a short time?  Seriously

How about this ...
 



 



Runs off the tractor hydraulics

[mike_van]

Kodiacmac, I made my own some 10 years ago. Started with an 8,000 lb. Tulsa winch off a wrecker. I had a hyd. motor driving it, but never got the right one. Too slow & not enough 'snot' I had it for sale for awhile, some lookers, no takers. End of this summer, I had it in my shop, went from hyd. to pto drive. The changeover was just incredible. I've skidded out 100+ trees since then with no problems. I lost my reverse drive by going to pto, I have to watch out I don't get in a spot where I can't backup or lower the hitch to let the strain off the cable. So far, so good. 

  A few pics   

     The last pic. shows the butt & part rootball from an oak I winched up a pretty steep bank. The cut is about 40", the whole piece some 7 ft long. 

     The frame is channel iron from an old highline crossarm, galvenized, but it was free. I've got 125' of cable on it, twice I had to add on to reach a log.

[Ironwood]

Guys,  ALL great ideas.

 Larry,

 I like yours on the ground, are there studs or cleats that bury in the ground if it starts to pull you in reverse? Just a thought. I think I may do a hybrid of the Larry and Mike Van units


   Ironwood

[Stephen Alford]

The hydraulic winch has worked well for me . I have had it for about 17 years and because it is hydraulic it has been on more than one piece of gear.  Needs evolve and found myself needing the back of the tractor for other stuff and wanting the winch at the same time. Being able to use powered spool in and spool out with freespoll has been very useful. The thing I never got to incorporate yet is some form of fairlead to keep the cable coming on stright to reduce wear. Added a couple of yarding pics to the gallery.

[beenthere]

Stephen
Is that pulpwood you are bringing in?   or for firewood?

And do you just winch it in, or try to back out with it on the front like that?

[Stephen Alford]

Hey BT; our forestry sector has pretty much flatlined. Firewood is the primary product these days especially in any stand improvement work. Over the years that winch has pulled just about everything . Generally speaking the twitch is pulled together and hauled ahead. the tractor is turned and the wood sorted and hauled to the landing with the grapple. Then the slash is picked up and piled or spread depending on objectives.