powering a 45,000 lb Garwood winch with hydraulic pump

[Vintage iron]

I have a Garwood 45,000 lb winch mounted to the front of the m54. The Garwood 45,000 can on 10 ton wreckers and was shaft to chain driven. My buddy has a ten ton and the power comes from a driveshaft that comes from the top of the tranny to a shaft/sprocket block, up to a forward reverse box viva chain, then viva chain to the winch. That is way to much moving parts. I would like to run the winch using Hydraulics. I have done some home work and found that I am going to need a pump that will push 22 gpm at 1800 rpm and 2000 psi to run the winch to it full potential. I would run a chain sprocket of the hydraulic motor, so I could have some adjustablity on line speed. I am also going to run a dump bed and hope that I can run both of the same pump, since I will only use one at a time. Any advice or tips. I am thinking of building my own dump set too. I am a fabricator so welding isn't a problem. It is the design, I need help with!

 

[eldgenb]

boy there are a lot of complex systems you are diving in to here, you are going to need a valve spool with two valves, one for the winch and one for the dump bed. You need a reservoir that is at least 20 gallons, (pump and reservoir need to match gallon for gallon is minimum. The search function is your friend, search M920, dump bed, there is a lot of good info on the site and it will keep people from having to rehash something that has been well explained dozens of times already and post a thread if you have a problem or something that is unclear about your build. Good luck.

 

[M813A1]

I am wondering if the front steering will handle the weight ?? Wouldn't it cause the front suspension to give steering problems with that much weight up front ?? And cause excessive wear to the fornt axle bearings and components ?? I hope that will not be a problem !!

 

[Vintage iron]

Thanks Eldgen for the tip on the Dump bed. I only referenced it so people could get a full picture of what I was planning and to see how it would change the design of the hydraulic system. As for the weight issue. These trucks are rated for 10 ton on road, I don't think a few hundred pounds will hurt. Plus the Garwood 45,000 has a aluminum housing.

 

[Jake0147]

I don't know this winch at all, beyond very generic gathered information... A couple of things to ponder however-

I doubt the winch weighs what the winch cable is going to. how much is that? I dunno, but you should. The data tag will show empty and max weights. Prolly there's enough to cover all that, but it should be "known" and not "assumed"...

You have a pump "spec'ed" that does not sound unreasonable and possibly will be quite feasible, but no mention of a motor? They have to be spec'ed together. You can double the PSI and cut the volume in half, or vice versa. The ratio between the spec sheets for the pump and the motor will be the drive and driven gear ratios for the chain sprockets, and will have to accomodate the differences between the original winch drive including it's PTO drive ratio and your new application. How much horsepower is your PTO and it's mounting good to deliver? That's your limiting factor on the final speed of the winch. Too much pump or too little motor, and it drives by all torque. (Transmission parts break). Too little pump, or too much motor, and it all drives by flow, requiring huge RPMs to acquire any reasonable speed.

Of course you have twice as much (Roughly? I think) as the PTO on your truck was designed for, you can expect the design spec to have to accommodate that fact with a significant lack of speed, to the tune of about half as much as the original...?

The winch it's self... Does it have provisions robust enough to mount the hydraulic motor directly? Remember, every single inch pound that goes in will have to be reacted to somewhere, and that somewhere will be whatever you bolt the hydraulic motor to.

Watch out for used hydraulics, make darned sure that whatever you get is open center. The precision is not quite there compared to closed center, but when operating one spool at a time you'll never know the difference. They're a lot simpler when it comes to the pump, They're a lot more forgiving about less than perfect matches, pumps are cheaper, diagnostics are a lot more straight forward should it quit working (although not rocket science on a one spool system anyhow). Hold out for that.

 

[m16ty]

Here's some pics of a 45K winch we mounted on the back of our KW truck. I don't recall the specs on the hyd motor but I can get them if you need them. I will say that you're going to need a 40gpm pump or line speed is going to be awfully slow. Another thing to consider is the 45K winch has no provision to freewheel cable off (you have to power out the cable).

 

[robert c neth]

i have a m35 navy truck with front rear and dump hydraulics,had an 8 foot snow blower on the front and salt spreader on the back all from one pump has quite a few control in the cab.

 

[joeM62]

Well if you were wanting to make it hydraulic then could you look at a M900 wrecker don't they have the the're bed winch hydraulic operated.

 

[Vintage iron]

Wow! you guys are great! Robert do you think you could tell me how your system is run. Starting at the PTO. What size pump? what size hoses? controls? pressure and flow? what size motor for the winches. size of your dump piston? and reservoir? This will help me guide me way though this.

 

[m16ty]

On the pics I posted, we are running a 40gpm, 2500psi Commercial Intertec pump. I don't recall the specs on the motor but I can get them. The supply hoses are 1" (to use in another application also) but the valve and hoses from the valve to the motor are 3/4". We are using a reservoir that holds 10 gal but it could stand to be bigger or run a cooler. The oil gets on the verge of getting too hot on long drags.

The motor is chain drive to the winch with a much bigger sprocket on the winch end. The motor we had put out lots of torque but it's speed was slow so we geared it up. When it's all said and done you want the motor to stall at max capacity as to not break the winch. When we installed this setup (about three years ago) I had everything figured. I'll see if I can find my notes.

 

[Vintage iron]

More information would be great. I will be talking with a hydraulic supply company too. But knowing is half the battle! I always double check before I buy!

 

[Vintage iron]

P.S. what was you line speed in and out. Did it matter if it was under load ( line spd wise)

 

[tennmogger]

You have a big project to add all that hydraulic stuff to any truck. One question was more straightforward, how to transfer hydraulics from one dual circuit to another.

Surplus Center - 1/2" NPT 20 GPM DOUBLE SELECTOR VALVE

This is a great place to shop for hydraulics. Note that this particular valve is for 1/2" NPT and you might need larger.
This type valve accepts the two hoses from/to the hydraulic system and transfers it to either of two circuits, in your case winch or dumper. That way you use the same spools to control both.

I use one of these to transfer hydraulic power on the rear of a Unimog. That was easier than having to run additional hoses all the way to the back.

 

[Recovry4x4]

I think I would go spool out 100' of cable off the back of a wrecker and then respool it before I would commit to installing that winch on your truck. That is just one more reason I have an M108. That 45,000# drag winch is way more winch than I can manhandle.

 

[m16ty]

P.S. what was you line speed in and out. Did it matter if it was under load ( line spd wise)

It is slow. I haven't timed it but it takes about 2 minutes to let down or pick up the neck on our M870. It operates the M870 fine but you're not paying out much cable for this operation (maybe 20' at most). Honestly, for winching operations it would be too slow IMO.

I haven't noticed any change in line speed. I don't know how much load I've put on the winch but I've broken the 3/4 cable a couple of times.

The absolute worst thing about the 45K winch is that you have to power out the cable. You can't knock it out of gear and freewheel it like you can the 20k or 10K winch.

 

[Vintage iron]

I have done a lot of home work on this winch and I am hearing the same thing. This winch is to big for what I want to do with it. I will replace it with a 20,000 lb winch and hook it up in the stock set up and I am getting a dump bed off a 5ton. So everything will bolt up. Sometimes it is better to keep it simple! NOW! anyone want to trade a 20,000 5 ton winch for a 45,000 Garwood winch?

 

[Vintage iron]

After doing my homework on this winch. Here is what I found. IT IS TO **** BIG! there is a reason that the drum has no freewheel. I don't think you could pull 3/4 cable off a drum by yourself. The big worm gear winches are slow. unless you are going to pull down a house I would stick with a nice 20,000 lb winch. I ended up buying a M813 winch truck with a 20,000 lb winch on the front. I still plan on getting a winder and tensioner for it. they work great and no birds nests.