Synthetic rope is costly, especially for a 12K winch. You're looking at about $300 for 100 ft. of rope. Run the steel until it's toast then swap it out. You'll also need to either switch to a hawse type fairlead or you can get plastic rollers for your roller fairlead. The synthetic lines don't like scarred up steel rollers.

 

Thanks 04 will run with the steel. Any advice on water proofing the winch?

 

You have to waterproof the electric motor and solinide and keep the gears greasy ..

 

The HF Winch will serve you well. We put one on my buddy's FJ Cruiser years ago - Any time we called upon it, it worked. Slow? Sure. Loud? Definitely. It did always get us out. - That's a solid 4 year review, that I can personally speak to.

Here's an interesting review as well, "Winches in Hell" - Chicago Electric. i.e. HF!

Jeep Articles / General (Winches In Hell) - MoabJeeper Magazine

Personally, I run Superwinch. While they're now building parts in China, they still employ many people at their main facility 20 mins from my house.

While I still don't have my Rover yet - I do have my Talon 12.5i SR ready to go.

Dave

 

Tom the cables are 4 gauge, would 2 gauge be better?

 

The lower the gauge the better. Winches get very hot and the wires do too, the larger gauge wire the better.

I assume you're referring to the power cord correct? And not the gauge of the steel cable?

 

Larger is better, as a rule of thumb, but it might not be worth the expense. The only way for me to accurately answer is for you to tell me what the max draw of the winch is, and the length of the run of the cable.

edit: Found the manual which gives the cable size as 6' of AWG 3.5 (a nonexistant AWG size so probably converted from circular mils) and a draw of 320amps at 12,000lbs.
Based on that the volt drop would be between 0.58v (#4) and 0.38v (#2). You want the volt drop to be less than 0.5v so you're right on the edge. If it were me I'd go to #2 which would give you 0.38v drop. Since I make my own cables I'd probably even go to #1 which would give 0.27v drop.

These figures are based on a system voltage of 12v. Actually running voltage is higher so you'll have better voltage at the motor with the engine running. But I always size mine for engine not running when it's even more important to have good voltage at the winch.

If you don't need the full 6' and so shorten it, that will help some. Also, that's at max load. If you rarely, if ever, use the full winch rating, you're probably ok with that cable, especially if you can shorten it by a foot or two.

 

Again thank you Tom. I will go with 2 gauge because I want to mount my solenoid box under the hood in the area where the bottle jack was and use a wireless winch remote for it so cables to the winch from the solenoid will be longer and short to the battery.

 

Another option is Engo. I used one of my rover with excellent results.

 

Okay installed HF 12500 lb winch, put the solenoid under the hood where the bottle jack was, ran all new 2 gauge from winch to battery to solenoid etc. Waterproofed the motor as well as the solenoid (see pic).