PTO tractor winch details and disassembly.

[@colrad0710]

Very nice set up and thank you for taking the time to tear it down and explain everything!

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you!

[@ironmule]

Forget getting a patent. Several manufacturers producing these obviously but are very pricey. You should just sell diy plans with a parts list for the winch assembly only.

[@thehabitathook32]

I started looking for videos a couple years ago on the mechanical aspects of how these winches work and this is the only one I've come across in many hours of research that actually details it out. I had a good idea but for building one myself, I was missing some details. You may have copied a design but so far this is the only video I've found that goes thru the detail, and even a thread on the forestry forum to boot! Nice job and appreciated.

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you! I believe we've met, if you are the maker of Habitat Hooks, that is. My wife, kids and I drove up and met you at your workplace this last winter and I bought one of your steel hooks. Small world! If you have questions I'd be glad to help answer them!

[@thehabitathook32]

@@Bryce_Shuman yep, that be me. Seen your habitat work and thought, "this guy has got to already have a hook". I'm sure I'll reach out. Thanks

[@kevinolson1102]

Nice rundown on the guts of your logging winch. The needle thrust bearings may prove to be a little delicate in actual use conditions, but it would be easy to sub in a greasable bronze/oilite thrust washer. Even a stack of hardened steel washer might be OK as a thrust bearing with some moly grease. A grease Zerk and a couple of drillings in the shaft would get the thrusts a shot of lube from time to time. If, in the interest of safety, someone wanted to actuate the winch from the tractor end of the drum (maybe with an expanded steel mesh guard, in case the winch cable parts during a hard pull, though I certainly understand your point of view about feeling what the machine is doing, back at the business end), it would be pretty easy to invert the whole drum shaft apparatus so that the ACME nut is located at the front end, and could be actuated from the tractor seat. If the drag brake were also moved, it should be possible to positively actuate that as the clutch releases, using a mechanical linkage, to more positively hold the drum, with a neutral position for free spool. I'm not knocking your design; what you've got is the minimum necessary for function - the less fanciness there is, the less there is to maintain or break at the least opportune moment. I'm just offering some thoughts for others who want to follow in your footsteps and who might not be as comfortable as you are working in exposed conditions. McMaster Carr isn't usually the cheapest source of materials, but they are almost always in stock in one warehouse or another. I've gotten similar drive parts from Surplus Center. I have a vest pocket track loader (~1800 lb Mead Speed Cat) with a pseudo-3-point rear toolbar, to which I'd like to attach a logging winch (and a pair of shear legs - gin pole to oil patch guys - for truss setting and the like, but that's another story). Your videos will be a big help. I may use an old 8,000 lb Desert Dynamics (now Pierce) worm drive winch I bought cheaply off CL (wouldn't need a brake to hold a load when used with the shear legs in lifting applications, due to the worm drive, but it's pretty slow), or I may set up a separate dedicated winch for twitching out logs, similar to yours. Thanks a bunch for the details. I'll have to go check out the discussion on the forums. Nice work!

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you for the breakdown of your ideas Kevin. There certainly are multiple methods one could utilize to make this thing work. Surplus Center is definitely a viable source but one must pay attention to the source of manufacture when it comes to bearings and other driveline components when shopping. My 60-tooth sprocket is of Chinese origin as were both of the 1-3/8" pillow block bearings for the PTO shaft. Those bearings have been swapped for Rexnords as the Chinese housing cracked on one and therefore I chose not to trust them in this application. The current 11-tooth drive sprocket is Japanese, although I had a Chinese 13-tooth to begin. The winch was just a bit too fast and could get you in trouble if you weren't paying attention. The double idlers used to reverse the winch direction (I made a monumental mistake during the build and had to reverse the assembly) are American Martins, though with Chinese bearings in them. I had a suggestion from a person who built a similar winch and had the thrust bearings fail. He swapped over to washers I believe. I'm monitoring my setup closely prior to and during winching for wear and failure in these areas. So far so good. The best part about building yourself is you get to break it and build it stronger the next time! :) Thanks again Kevin!

[@kevinolson1102]

@@Bryce_Shuman Thanks for the additional details. The sprocket tooth counts that worked for you are good info to have. Your chain reverser is pretty standard and a good solution, and looks just fine to me - lots of wrap angle on the sprockets, so it should work. I may need to do something similar for my old gear drive Cub Cadet's PTO (same rear end and tranny as the Farmall Cub), since the PTO turns the "wrong" way for standard implements. It's OK for belt drive stuff, but for most shaft driven stuff (not including a sickle bar mower), it needs to be turning the "right" way. I've thought about putting a forward-neutral-reverse gearbox in the driveline, between the clutch and the tranny input, and flipping the ring gear in the rear end. If I can find the right gearbox (or the right parts) I may still do that, and then eventually install a four-speed kit from Midwest Super Cub as the budget allows. I have an old Johnson or Evinrude F-N-R trans from a snowmobile which I bought cheap off CL, but it uses bevel gears like an outboard engine (go figure, right?) and forward would need to use the bevel gears, with reverse being direct; not sure it's really up to the task at this stage in its life, since the bevel gears feel kind of chunky, even though the original sleds were rated at 35 hp or some such. Another option is to build a driveline reverser using spur gears, or a variable pitch sheave v-belt-based shuttle shift. Regarding Surplus Center: like any of the low cost leaders - Tractor Supply, Harbor Freight, Walmart - some stuff is serviceable, some stuff is suspect, and some stuff you'd be better off just throwing your money in the trash at the start because it would be less frustrating. I've generally lucked out, so far with Surplus Center - for a while, they were my go to source for genuine Gates v-belts at discount prices, though now they have hardly any sizes listed - but I know I shouldn't count on that holding in the future. If anything, I may be due for a sea change! I have been noodling on building a line boring rig to do several DIY projects (bucket pivots on the track loader, bore an engine block for top hat liners). I think I'll buy the flange bearings for that project from a reputable, name brand source. The bearings are the main source of precision (other than setup), so I don't want to be cheap there. NB: For those keeping box scores at home, the build thread on the Forestry Forum is entitled "PTO Winch Build". Either the Forum's search or a Google site search should get you to it. I'd post a direct link, but unfortunately YT's rules prevent helpful links. I've learned that my comments will be ash canned my formerly-Susan's minions if I do so much as link to a Google Patents listing.

[@ironmule]

Best video on line explaining this. What's the idea on the three bottom sprockets vs. 1? Thanks

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you! While building the frame, I welded the cross-plate which captures the shaft on backwards and did not notice it until much later in the build. Therefore I added 2 idlers in order to reverse the rotation of the driven sprocket in order to wrap the cable on the drum the correct way.

[@jkmcp45]

Hey brother the sprocket is prolly cause from flex I watch your vid prolly daily cause I’m building thanks for the details

[@TomWolff-b9j]

Great build! Thanks for the explanation.

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you, I'm glad it was helpful!

[@AndrewMoizer]

Thanks for the breakdown. All makes sense and seems like a good solid approach. I have a bunch of stuff in ‘inventory’ that would cover off a lot of one of these. I’ll have to watch the rest of your videos.

[@Bryce_Shuman]

If you'd like to see anything specific don't hesitate to ask!

[@AndrewMoizer]

@@Bryce_Shuman Thanks for that. I had a few but I found your FF topic and I think it answered them all. Perhaps adding it to the video description would help others. It certainly looks like it's working well for you. I went looking at my inventory and have a bunch of 48 tooth sprockets, however I'm thinking that more of a gear down is probably needed. I'm am wondering if you've unspooled all your cable yet, and whether it's got any permanent set to it? The minimum bend radius for 7/16 cable is a good bit more than your hub. But I'm wondering if they are pretty conservative. I just got a 6ton snatch block that was on clearance and it's only 6" diameter. Once again thanks for sharing your build.

[@Bryce_Shuman]

@@AndrewMoizer I haven't unspooled all of my cable since the first day or two it was on the drum. I'll do so and check out the memory in it. I would suggest at least a 60-tooth driven, 12-tooth drive. Take a Wallenstein winch for example, you can get on their website and check out exploded parts diagrams for their winches and glean some info from them. I don't think many commercial winch manufactures are running anything less than a 5:1 reduction at 540rpm PTO speeds. Most of them have much larger drum hub OD's as well, leading to a smaller spool capacity, but that adheres more to the minimum bending radius of the cable sizes they utilize.

[@AndrewMoizer]

@@Bryce_Shuman Appreciate all the info. Read through your thread again today. Also discovered a chunk of hefty ACME threaded rod I'd forgotten about yesterday. It's almost like destiny (LOL). I agree on the speed. I also have an 8000# Rhino worm winch that I've never got into action that would be my other option. I had a hydraulic motor hooked up to it, but I think it would be too slow with the one I had. It has a 4" root diameter for the spool, so again pretty small. I gave a quick look at a winch of this design that happened to be outside the farm dealer a couple of weeks ago. Interesting to get more details. I think for logging they would work really well.

[@Bryce_Shuman]

@@AndrewMoizer I agree, it appears you won't be lacking in power with a worm gear winch.

[@mhew2030]

Nice work Thanks for the details Like the design

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you for watching!

[@markw2266]

I was looking for repair videos for a Hudson 35m that needs a new clutch . What I noticed on your build is standard cable instead of swedged cable. If your cable is binding up, try a length of swedged cable. It looks to me like they fed a 7/16" cable into a die, which smooths out the cable. It has to make a difference as it slides over itself better. Nice job, hows it working?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you, I'm quite pleased with how it works. I priced swedged cable when I bought mine but couldn't justify the increase. I haven't had any issues caused by the cable though I routinely unspool my drum and rewind it using the dead weight of the tractor as a load to keep things from getting unruly on the spool.

[@RickyHodges-u8h]

Do you have a parts list of pulleys and bushings and bearings Also I dont understand the bottom pulley system rather than a single pulley Looks like excellent system

[@Bryce_Shuman]

I have receipts from what I've purchased, but haven't compiled them all yet. The bottom triple-sprocket configuration is because I messed up while building it and it ran in the reverse direction than what I had intended it to. I installed the plate that my drum-shaft goes through backwards. So the triple-sprocket configuration provided a simple way to fix my screw-up rather than cut off a lot of welds and re-install the plate correctly.

[@xMegatron_]

Where do the pads on the gear wheel come from? Where to buy these? Are these brake pads or clutch pads?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Mine are old used brake pads. You can purchase sheets of the friction material off McMaster Carr and epoxy them to your plate or bolt them with brass screws.

[@LivingOurAmericanDream]

I wasn’t thinking of using this to fell trees, good hinges and wedging will get the job done. However, how does this rig do with skidding logs? I have lots of instances where I need to pull a downed log up onto a trail from back in the woods 50-60 yards. Does this winch have enough power to skid?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

That's exactly what I built it and use it for. It works great for me.

[@chriswilliams5268]

Wow great build Had you considered welding the ubolt to the inside so had no protrusions or was there a reason you found that wouldn't work?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you, yes I considered it and no doubt it would work. It has been one of those "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" things. :)

[@chriscox6598]

Great job. I have thought about building one myself.

[@Bryce_Shuman]

You should!

[@waynelucas6395]

sorry if I missed it but what size chain are you running?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

No worries, it's a #60 chain.

[@randallcrane2704]

Very good job thanks for sharing

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thank you and thanks for watching!

[@randallcrane2704]

@@Bryce_Shuman I would like to have one like that

[@RichMenzel]

Nice Job, thanks for sharing! I also built a logging winch and I'm having trouble with spooling. I need to add the top swivel pulley which directs the cable down to the winch like you have. Can you give me any details on that pulley? Did you buy it, from where or fabricate it?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

If you search for "yarding block" you'll find what you need. I bought a few of the 3 ton blocks which are 4" sheaves. I gutted the sheave and built a swiveling mount for it. Let me know if you want more information on it and I'll make another video for you. :)

[@smakleghari]

Amazing work. How does the clutch engage when the lever is moved?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

A threaded ACME nut pushes the drum along the shaft and into the clutch.

[@jozefmachota4741]

Thank you👍

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Absolutely!

[@thomassalgert9976]

Very good Job.

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thanks Thomas!

[@09vanjes]

Slip clutch or shear bolt on your drive line?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

I currently do not have a shear bolt or slip clutch. That's something I clearly overlooked, thank you for that!

[@mhew2030]

Is the tractor pto at 540 rpm? What sprocket ratio did you use ? Getting what rpm at cable wheel?

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Yes, my tractor PTO is 540-rpm at rated engine HP, around 2700rpm. I have not found any need to run the engine faster than around 1500rpm in my use, therefore PTO speed should be ~300rpm and drum speed ~60rpm. If you check out this link, it will take you to a build thread on a website containing various calculations at various gear ratios for my setup. forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=121139.0

[@thomasgardner5872]

Expert tutorial!

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thanks Thomas!

[@regparsons5674]

Thanks for your explanation! Excellent job!

[@Bryce_Shuman]

You are welcome! I hope you found it helpful.

[@sarashuman3890]

👏

[@Bryce_Shuman]

:)

[@grb318]

👍👍💙💙💛💛

[@Bryce_Shuman]

Thanks!