My log arch build with pics and action shots :)

[kelLOGg]

Nice arch! and photo-documenation to go with it. Mine is about the same capacity as yours but you have more beer holders than I do  .
Bob

[Piston]

Bob-who are you kiddin'?


Your arch could eat my arch for breakfast 

[Buck]

I hope somebody chimes in on the winch addition to a farm tractor. I have been studying and think the best way I've found would be to add an auxillary battery. I just don't see how the tractor system could keep up without it. If your business works like mine you will end up needing to use that winch more than just in an intermittent type of use.

[Autocar]

Cool pictures and it dose the job. Great workmanship 

[clww]

That's an awesome log arch!

[Banjo picker]

Nice topic.. don't know how I had missed it earlier on...but I did...Tim

[John Mc]

If your tractor is running when you run the winch (at good rpms, so your alternator is putting out decent amps), and if you really are only winching short distances (like just lifting the log up off the ground, or dragging it a few feet), you will most likely not hurt your battery. The heavier the drag, and the longer the time spent dragging, the more you risk sucking the battery down too far.

Sooner or later you will be tempted to use your electric winch like a logging winch, or do a bunch of shorter twitches one right after the other, without letting the tractor top off the battery between hitches. That's when you'll toast your battery. You might not kill it the first time, but each time you do this, you'll shorten the life. Adding a dedicated, deep cycle battery will protect your tractor's battery. Whether you need to do this or not depends on how disciplined you are in using your winch.

John Mc

[sealark37]

Nice piece of work.  I know that you will get  great use out of your arch.  On the other hand, I suspect that your shop is in reality a Hollywood set.  It is far too clean and uncluttered to be a real shop.  All that light, and nice, clean walls and doors.  Thanks for posting.  Regards, Clark

[Ford_man]

I would use a Hydraulic Winch If you still need one I have a 10 ton winch that I took off My equipment trailer because I don't have hyd on my truck. It will work off your tractor with no ill effects.

[pineywoods]

Electric winch on a tractor beats no winch, but not by much. Don't think you would be happy with it. Hydraulic is the way to go. Look around the truck bone-yards for an old pto type winch. Add a hydraulic motor, a couple of sprockets and some roller chain. I spent about $250 on mine. Used it today to snake a 24 inch 25 foot pine log out of a briar thicket.

[Piston]

As far as the winch goes, that is my first priority, as the log arch right now is very inconvenient to use, and I find myself not using it just because I don't have a good winch.   

So that is my first modification to work on.   

I had some spare time and decided to work on the winch. 
 First thing I did was lay out all the parts I had.  I already attached the winch to a bracket that would allow me to mount the winch in a standard 2" receiver hitch.  I did this thinking that I will also be able to use it with my truck, or weld a receiver hitch on my trailer and use it to load logs with. 


 

 


The directions stated to mount the solenoid, switch, and most of the parts, near the battery.  Well, I really wanted to be able to use the winch on other vehicles and if I mounted the solenoid and circuit breaker on the tractor, I would only be able to use the winch with the tractor. 
So my idea was to mount the solenoid, circuit breaker, and remote switch plug, right next to the winch, or better yet on the winch.  So that is what I did. 

I started by welding a small piece of flatbar to the winch mount.
 

 

Then I attached a piece of plexiglass to mount the solenoid on.
 

 

 

 


Then I added a little more support and a top piece of plexi glass. 
 

 

I drilled a hole for the small, round female plug for the handheld remote to plug into, and then mounted it in the plexiglass.
 

 

 

 

 

 


You can see from the pic below that I had way too much wire, the winch was provided with about 6' of relatively small gauge wire, I only needed a few inches. 
 

 


So I cut out a bunch of excess and spliced the wire back together.  I also added my main power wires, which were two lengths of welding lead cables.  These work really well since they are rated to 200amps and are very flexible.  It certainly doesn't look like a professional job, but I never claimed to be one. 
 

 


 

  

These are the connectors I used which I found online, they were very simple to use.  I installed this plug with about 6' or so of cable from the winch.  This is how I will plug the winch into my tractor. 


 


I also used welding leads on the tractor, along with another plug of the same style, I wired the welding leads directly to the battery.  Then snaked them to the back of the tractor, and mounted the plug right on the inside of the left rear fender, out of harms way. 
 

 

 

 


Unfortunately, I'll have to wait to finish the install.  The next step will be to weld the 2" receiver hitch to the top of the log arch, then I'm off and running.  I did plug the winch in and try it to make sure it worked, and so far so good.  The main test will be to see if it works well by lifting the logs.  It will probably be a month or so before I can get my hands on the welder I borrow.  After that, and after some use, I'll post some pics and let you know how it works out.  I sure hope it works better than the broken come-along I've been using! 

[John Mc]

A nice looking installation. One thing to think about, however:  The reason for mounting the circuit breaker near the battery is to protect the battery from shorts between the battery and the winch. As you have it mounted, you are only protected from problems in the winch itself, and the short length of wire between your circuit breaker and the winch.

I'd suggest you consider mounting a circuit breaker or fuse of some sort near the battery. You should do this on whatever vehicle you want to mount the winch on, so that vehicle's battery and wiring are protected.

[SwampDonkey]

I had a winch on the trailer hooked up with the same coupler and 4 gauge wire and I used the breaker on the battery end. I used the wince to skid logs up onto the bed of the trailer. The back had a flip down ramp. It was 2500 lb winch. It's still on the trailer, but I sold the truck.

[westyswoods]

This thread has been very helpful in that I am in the process of fabbing a new front plate to fit on a T190 Bobcat. I did not like anything out there as my purpose is to make it multipupose and adaptable while being wide enough to cover front of both tracks.

I am going to mount a 9,000 lb hydraulic winch on the front. Have been struggling on the mounting, but decided to make it removable via two receiver mounts on both ends slipping through front of plate 24" apart.

This a used winch which i got for free came off a Tool Cat with Beaver Squeezer. Free spool out one directional on the wind.

Question is when winding the cable is it better to wind over the top, under bottom and or does it not make a difference?

I have many pics I can post of various projects done. Problem is my learning curve on how to post here is DA. Example being my wife and I just spent countless hours, literally attempting to produce a video on CD for her father. I know you all like pics and am willing to share just not sure how?

[Piston]

Westy,
I don't know if it's different for the type of winch you have, but in the instructions for my winch, it specified that I must mount the winch and spool the cable so the cable spooled on from the bottom, as you can see in some of the pics. 

[ForestMan]

Very nice, heavy duty log arch you built.  Well done!