Looking to buy one for the farm/shop use, just wondering what you folks recommend. HF's got the starters for 60-100 bucks but I'm kinda leary of cheap *** batteries and how well they'll hold a charge. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Same with the winch, just needing something to mount on the front of the trailer to help load old cars. I figure 3000 lbs. ought to be enough, as long as the car will roll.
i've never had any luck with the cheap jump starters. got a nice one from sears about $125 but it has a compressor ,jump starter,12 volt outlet,110 volt outlet, and a light also . i have the hf 8,000 lb winch got it a few years ago and it works great even when the car hardly wants to roll
69supercj, thanks for asking this..i have been meaning to get one for awhile. Recommendations welcome. tok
Just go out and buy a 1000CCA battery, clamp on a good set of leads and start anything. Keep it on a trickle charger. Probaly cheaper than a good jumper and much better.
My experience with jump starters has been that the ones that do a little bit of everything don't do any ONE thing well. Most of the tow trucks around here and many of the garages use a blue one from the local NAPA stores. Can't remember the brand name right now. Can't help with the winch.
try ***ociated for the jump pack.. thats what we use 24/7 I have even ran cars on them to get it to the shop with bad alternators. they will jump a car with in seconds of hooking them up and also for the winch you could always upgrade on the cable and get a small ****** block to reduce your line tension
Winch recommendations - Warn M8000 or a Ramsey REP8000. They're a little pricey but if you do a little searching you can get either of them for under $500 shipped to your door. Both have 100' of cable, roller fairleads, wired remotes, and are quality tools. Warn has better relays, but the Ramsey setup can be rigged/byp***ed easier if you break it. Bolt the winch to a flat plate with some angle welded on to hold the fairlead, and weld on a 2" tube to fit into a hitch. You can put a 2" receiver on the trailer (or buy a ready made mount) and then use the winch on your trailer or anything else with a Reese style hitch. At about 90lbs with mount, they're a little heavy to carry though. With that kind of power you can drag a car with 4 flat tires across a field up onto a trailer. The HF winches will work, and I've seen them do a good job, but they're less reliable and you'll have to fuss with them more. Remotes fail, the cable is held onto the drum with a little 1/4" bolt, etc. So if you're always working at max capacity, upgrade to a better brand. Don't know anything about battery packs. But a good marine deep cycle with screw terminals on top will work for the winch and just about anything else.
i bought the warn the 3700 lb. winch, works great, handles 3500 to 4000 lb car great, and with a ****** block you can double the pulling power of any winch. as far as a jumper box spend the money on a good one, or dont bother.
As far as the winch, a good, inexpensive one is a Rugged Ridge 8500lb winch for about $300. Will load anything. You can mount it on a base plate welded to a 2" receiver hitch. Weld the receiver end to the trailer and you can easily remove the winch. You can wire up the power leads using those Warn-style quick disconnects for under $40, and you can even modify a pair of jumper cables to attach to those quick disconnects for jumpstarting other vehicles from the back of your tow rig. An air tank to air up tires would also be nice, or use a big nitrogen bottle from a welding supply house with a regulator and air hose.
Do not buy the hf boat winch with the plastic wheel on the side!!!!!! Spend at least $200 on the winch or you'll be SORRY!!! Jim
This winch lives in my enclosed trailer,It is an 8000 pound with my homemade mount. It can be used with a reciever hitch,or chain any where. It is bolted down when in the trailer and I use a good sealed high power battery for it and the trailer interior lights. Never had anything with to much power,buy the best winch you can. Gary
Thanks for the ideas guys. As for ease of removal on the winch, it'll probably never come off the trailer and with that, I will need to make it hard to remove for would-be theives I guess. I'm thinking about using a really good deep cycle battery w/cables for my jump starter, not sure yet. Nice to have it all wrapped in a convienient package.
Super CJ...I bought the cheapo $100 total 3000lb winch from Harbor Freight and have had it mounted on my trailer for nearly two years...have used that ****er MANY times...still works just fine. The remote cable and relay were junk from day one..so I just connect jumper cables right from the battery to the terminals on the winch. A little ghetto but has been getting the job done for a long time. I like expensive stuff too like Warn or US made winches...but sounds like I could buy 5 of the cheapo HF ones for the price of one expensive one....as for mounting..HF sells a metal mounting plate that is separate and I just bolted it to my trailer deck...works just fine...
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