mounting a winch on front of Kubota

[ANiforos]

Hello all,

I have a Kubota B2630 with a FEL. I live on six acres, with most of it wooded. Basically I use the tractor with a couple of different road smoothing implements to keep my thousand foot driveway and two thousand foot private road in good order.

Recently, I have used several chains and dragging tongs from Northern to get some logs out of my neighbors woods. I heat with wood most of the winter. What I have done is to use the tongs along with two to three 15 foot chains to get these logs out of the woods. After using this method several times, I thought, why not get a winch and mount it on the front of the tractor so I don't have to haul those heavy chains by hand. So I have started looking at Harbor Freight winches.....I know, don't laugh please, everything at Harbor Freight is not junk.

Harbor Freight has a 2500 lb winch regular price 150.00 on sale with a coupon for about $50.00.

They also have a 3500 lb winch on sale for $149.00.

They also have a 5000 lb winch on sale for 200.00

Those prices will be lowered with the 20% off coupon.

So I am asking for advice here. Will the smaller, 2500 winch be strong enough to drag out logs that are around two feet in diameter and 24 to 30 inches long? I have no idea how much these logs weigh.

Any input would be appreciated.

 

[newbury]

First - hunt for a 25% off HF coupon, they are usually around
Second here's a log weight calculator. Log Weight Calculator at WOODWEB

 

[94BULLITT]

Are you going to mount a second battery to the for the winch? Your tractors alternator will not keep the battery charged if it is used much. Electric winches usually have a very low duty cycle so you can on pull for a short time then you have to let it cool. Are these log inaccessible with the tractor?

 

[Jim Timber]

Duty cycle isn't the only problem with this idea - the line speed on electric winches is sloooooooooow. It'd be faster getting a rope, tying your chains to it and driving forward to pull the logs, then back up and remove the rope and hook the chains to the tractor before driving off with the logs to your landing.

Lots of logging winches on the market for this purpose. Line speed is a good clip for productivity, and they're PTO driven so you'll never hit the thermal overload protection (if a HF winch even has that?). You could also rig up a capstan winch off your PTO without too much difficulty. Surplus Center has some post hole digger gear boxes that could serve for your right angle adapter and reduction - all you'd need is a capstan spool (could be made of pipe) and some bracketry to hold it all on the tractor.

 

[Deere Dude]

What Jim said:thumbsup:
I needed to pull about 75 8-14" diameter and fairly tall oaks out of a 1 acre lot in a remote subdivision. I bought a 10000# HF winch for the task, but I never used it for that. I found I could hook the tree to a 50-100' cable and pull it out with my truck lickety split. Cables are light and easy to pull through brush. You just need a small chain to wrap around the tree to hook the cable to. If I had my tractor at the time I would have done it with that.
With winches you need to worry about how they reel in so the cables don't get gnarled up or get twisted, and they are slow.

 

[Grandad4]

This could be a neat DIY project if you didn't expect to use it much, but if you've got a lot of timber to move, it's probably not the answer.

There must be plenty of tractor owners that have given this idea consideration at one time or another. I know I certainly did. All the things the others already mentioned counted against the idea: slow winch speed, draws the battery down, not designed for continuous use.

If your logs are under 3 ft in length, there can't be a lot of weight involved and you might be able to pull with something beside log chains. Use caution with any pulling system of course... chain, cable, straps, rope, whatever.

 

[oosik]

An electric winch will put a TREMENDOUS strain on your entire electrical system. The "cycle times" will be short, a second battery will extend the cycle time but overall it will also complicate the electrical system, batteries will get HOT, wiring can get HOT. Quite honestly - electric winches are designed to be used occasionally to extract vehicles from stuck situations. They are not designed for continuous use - you are looking at getting into a situation, with an electric winch, where you will spend an inordinate amount of your time doing "winch/battery/wiring maintenance". You would be much better off looking at something that runs off your PTO and attaches to the rear of the tractor.

 

[s219]

Can't add more to what was already said. I use a 200' logging rope, chokers, pulleys, etc to get logs out of the woods. They move as fast as I care to move the tractor (which is out in a clearing). Way faster than speed of any of those winches, and more power too. Have not seen the need for a winch yet, but if I did I'd get a proper logging winch / skid plate combo for the back of the tractor. They are pretty darn cool.

 

[oosik]

Back when I cut pines on the property for firewood, I saw a fellow demonstrating a logging winch. They really are the cats-meow if you need something like that. I've always done like s219 and snaked them out.

 

[ddd75]

i bought a aircraft cable from amazon.. something like 100 or 200' for 30 bucks.. 6,000 lb cable if i remember. my 49hp mccormick couldn't break it but my 65hp JD can easily.

anyway.. i just put a could hooks on each end of the cable.. I also bought a snatch block if I need to pull from a different direction.

i'd pull all the logs up to a landing whre my trailer was at and then loaded them up.


with that small of wood your using I'd just pull a firewood spliter out there and just get it splitted in one spot and then collect it.