Winches: update -- problem solved, thanks to you!

Dan,
Sounds like a cheap ChinaWinch has struck again. I have one languishing in the garage that had no roller fairlead but only a oblong hole as the fairlead and it cracked the outer cast pot metal frame on the first pull. The problem is, almost all winches are now made in China, even Warn. I've had seven winches on my 4x4's and have used a winch for various reasons with maybe 500 pulls over the years. I used my Warn 8K until I wore out the tiny spur gear at the bottom inside that rolls the drum, with maybe 300 pulls until there were no teeth left. Some pulls were very complicated during jeep extractions. During one pull, I pulled the front bumper right off my Land Cruiser. Oh, well.

From your description, I would try this:
1. You need an anchor point. Industrial strength glue a very large heavy duty eye bolt (with the eye turned perpendicular to the pull direction) or a bolt and ring in an 8" deep drilled hole in the concrete floor like a cleat. Close as you can to the floor and the back wall. Put this in a place where it will self adjust to the wander of the trailer when it rolls. If this is too much stress on the trailer drop wheel, then get a heavier duty trailer caddy with a ball and two wheels.
2. Attach a snatch block to the eye bolt.
3. Use the winch on your truck and run the cable (steel wire rope is fine for your needs) under the trailer and thru the snatch block and back to the hitch of the trailer. Carefully take out the slack.
3. Start pulling the cable in with the Winch. Make sure you have your signals straight with your spouse, either hand signals or voice. I yell, "Hoap" when I want the winch to stop when Jeanie is operating the winch and i'm the operation manager.
4. If this is the only time you need a winch you don't need much of one. A 4K or 6K winch should be good enough. Maybe even a 3K pound. With a snatch block you will almost double the load you can move and half your line speed.
5. If the wire rope gets all tangled up just make sure you're not befouling anything and finish the pull. Then unwind the rope and reel it back on moving from side to side keeping the slack out and the each wind tight up against the last wind.

In our last home in La Crescenta before retiring to the West Slope, I had an elevated 10'x20' pad poured on which to store my car trailer. L.A real estate being as precious as it is I figured I could make something work. With a lot of effort i could get my 19'x7.5' w car trailer on the pad, zig-zaging around obstacles but I wanted to park my CJ8 rock crawler on the trailer also, kind of double decking. The woe was the trailer was facing the wrong way to drive the jeep up and on. Hmm? I installed a trailer ball on the rear of the car trailer (4" heavy angle iron with a hole for the ball; two, 3/4" bolts) and used my tow bar on the jeep to steer the trailer into position on the narrow slab. It worked way beyond my dreams, the thing rolling along on the drop wheel. You could turn the thing on a dime worming your way down the steep driveway. With two axles it tended not to bob. Then I reversed the jeep, put down the ramps and drove right on the trailer (chocks on every wheel ) all stacked next to our garage. People who looked at the stack wondered how I got the trailer in there backwards as the tongue hung out there in space at the far end of the slab.
Good luck.
jefe

Dan, how is your winch powered? 12v or 110 off the garage? If 12 volt, why not mount it using a trailer ball and pull to a deadman in the driveway in a straight line. Use the 12 volt off your trailer batteries. Sounds like you have a roller wheel on your jack, and you can control your lays on the winch drum by just pushing the trailer tongue back and forth. Or eat your Wheaties, and push that humongus trailer in by hand......;)

OP here -- I have learned a lot already! For one thing, the broomstick trick sounds like a winner, rather than letting the cable end up where it wants to. Since DW is the winch operator, I like the idea of a long stick better than the idea of her using her gloved hand to guide the wire.

And the idea of a pulley is great! The winch itself is essentially chained to a wall -- the cable would run through the pulley and out to the trailer. I could easily sink a threaded socket into the concrete of the driveway and then thread a bolt through the eye of a pulley. That way, the cable could go straight to the winch from the pulley.

But keep those ideas coming -- I am hoping for a fresh start with a new (and better) winch. My ex-winch has about a quarter of an inch gap between the plate at the end of the drum and the sideplate of the the winch itself -- just enough room to jam in a couple of turns of cable. My next winch will not have that gap, you can be sure.

In the Navy, we used a fancy traveling guide system to ensure the cable laid on the drum in even layers on inhaul. Much too complicated, expensive, and heavy for civvie use. But these were 75 & 100 HP electro-hydraulic winches used for at-sea transfer of cargo.

A roller fairlead is good, but it won't do the job by itself. It mostly keeps the cable from chaffing on non-straight pulls.

I've had winches on 4x4's for over 30 years for fun and profit. I've always used a length of broomstick with my winches... usually the dumb end of a windshield squeegee, about 18" long. Angle it in on the side of the cable away from the direction you want to move the cable, under the cable. Lift up against the baseplate as you spool in. Change sides as needed. Not perfect, but you can usually get a pretty even lay. The cable should always be laid on under tension. Otherwise the outer layers may crush a spot on the layer below.

My 8K Warn on the Toyota needs respooling now, since I was rushed last time I used it to pull a poplar out of the creek on the greenway. Tomorrow would be a good day to respool it. I'll take a few pics, and see if I can post them sometime in the near future (learning to use my new smartphone).

I'm sure synthetic rope is fine, but I learned on steel, and know what it can do if it's not abused. If your cable was cutting thru leather gloves, sounds like it had been over-stressed or laid on unevenly in a hard pull. Once you start breaking strands, they form little fishhooks.

Jim, "I asked the woman in the bookstore where the self-help section was. She said that telling me would defeat the purpose."

Synthetic cable (rope) is fine, but much more susceptible to abrasion or cutting if it gets over something sharp. Definitely the same length of cable is lighter when using synthetic, and breaking a line you get less inertial whip out of rope. As to your spooling issue, easiest is to make sure you align your drum with the cable direction. The only winch I knew of that had a cable spooling guide was a Hickey Sidewinder winch. Don't think they are made anymore, but it had a stainless steel spring band that covered the winch drum, and applied pressure down on the coil to keep the loops in alignment, and each successive layer expanded the band. I can't quite picture your set up, and why you can't guide it to spool in straight, but sometimes a simple gloved hand can keep things in line. Good luck.

I would think you could have a pulley near the front of the winch to guide it across.

I have a steel cable but if it gets frayed I would replace with a synthetic rope. Not sure if that would help the issue.

I can't imagine how a cable could get off the drum and onto the axle with my MileMarker. What winch do you have?

Maybe I'm visualizing this wrong. But can't you cut the cable to untangle it. Use a angle grinder with a cut off wheel (you'll probably need several) or take it to a local welding shop and get them to burn thru some of the cable. Then you'd just need a new cable.

My impressions of the difference between steel cable and synthetic is that the steel cable is tougher and will probably last longer. It does have broken wires tho. The synthetic rope is damaged by sunlight and dirt that gets on the cable can cut it internally. Also you need to be sure that the cable is good quality and not some cheaply made knock off. They are both dangerous if they break under load.

Look at this article:

4WD

And according to that article:

"Myth: “Synthetic rope won’t whip back if it breaks.”

Both will whip back after breaking. The heavier steel stores more kinetic energy, so it can cause more damage, but synthetic does not just break and fall to the ground. A winch line weight should be used on both."

Synthetic winch rope is great and safer as if it was to break it just drops to the ground. Can you use a pulley and anchor it where the trailer is going to ?

I don't have a lot of experience using my (or any) winch, but I positively think that synthetic cable, which I have, is a major improvement. As to guiding the cable, I've been able to do that from a few feet ahead of the fairlead (a little sideways pressure does a lot) I don't know about the winch 'pivoting', since they are usually solidly mounted.