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Rope Tricks
Warn’s new Synthetic Winch Rope Install
by Trent Riddle
photography by Trent Riddle & courtesy of the manufacturer
Many of you have installed a winch on your Jeep for the added insurance it provides on the trail. The addition of a winch means you have a better chance of getting out if you become stuck on a rock or worse.
For years the standard steel winch cable found on all vehicle recovery winches has been fine for the task asked of it, durability at an affordable price. However, with the advent of extreme rock crawling, standard steel cables began to show their downsides, the need for frequent replacement when used more than occasionally and the tendency to whip back violently when broken while under load. (This is usually due to a damaged cable). To address these issues, participants in the many different rock crawling competitions that have sprung up across the country began using synthetic winch rope, which was used mainly in the commercial fishing industry.
The engineers at Warn knew that this was not the optimum solution for professional rock crawlers and owners of advanced trail rigs. It seems that one’s needs for a winch rope material vary with the location on the drum. To provide the optimum in synthetic rope technology, the Warn engineers devised a synthetic rope that combines the best attributes of two types of high-performance fibers, woven into one rope. The first 30-feet of rope wound nearest the drum is made of a liquid crystal polymer fiber that provides excellent strength and bending properties over a wide range of temperatures. The remaining 70-feet of rope, from the hook back, is woven from another unique polyethylene fiber that exhibits superior handling and abrasion resistance.
WARN engineers faced a challenge when they set out to develop a synthetic rope for winching. The rope had to be light weight, durable and easy to handle — but it also needed to maintain high tensile strength over a wide range of temperatures.
The 100-foot winch rope is completed with the addition of a rugged hook that is mated to a 360-degree swivel and thimble, and a “Ballistic Nylon” sliding sleeve that provides extra protection against abrasion and wear. In addition, the winch rope comes with a new Hawse fairlead. The Warn Synthetic Winch Rope is designed for use on winches with rated capabilities of 9500 lbs. or less. It can be installed in under an hour and is a great replacement for your worn and damaged cable. It can stand up to any rock crawling challenge while reducing winch weight and fairlead wear and tear.
Buy Warn’s Synthetic Winch Rope from www.4wheelparts.com.
Warn Winches | Winches
Tools Required:
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1. The first step is to put your winch in neutral and spool off your old cable. The end of the cable is bolted to the drum, remove the bolt and set the cable aside. If it’s damaged, toss it in the trash. Or you could make a real heavy-duty hammock with it. |
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2. The original fairlead will need to be removed so you can grind a 1/16-inch radius on the winch plate opening. This will ensure that you don’t have any sharp edges to cut your new Winch Rope. |
3. A new Hawse fairlead is included with your Winch Rope. Be sure to install it. Your old fairlead is likely to be damaged from use over the years and have a few sharp edges. |
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4. The Winch Rope is secured to the drum with a special bolt. Be sure to add thread locker to the threads before installing it. |
5. The new Winch Rope comes with a nylon sleeve; slip this over the small end before installation. Next, the Winch Rope is installed through the fairlead, under the drum and around the backside as seen here. This installation ensures that your cable winds on the drum properly. |
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6. The first layer of the drum is wound tightly by hand, keeping the strands close together. Subsequent layers should be wound on under a slight load. We’ve found that connecting the hook end to a solid pole and dragging the rolling vehicle, in neutral, is the correct way to wind the cable on under load. Take care to keep fingers and clothing out of the way. |
7. Here you see the splice between the two different types of synthetic rope. This splice gets tighter as load is applied, so don’t worry about it pulling apart here. Note that the Winch Rope changes size here and care will be needed to get a clean wrap on the drum during the transition. |
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8. This is the completed installation. As you can see, the nylon sleeve is rolled onto the drum along with the last few inches of the Winch Rope. This sleeve can be moved up and down the Winch Rope to provide additional abrasion resistance where needed. |
