PTO Winch Advice Needed

Hi, I'm looking for a pto driven winch. I have a lightly loaded Loadstar 1700 4x4 used mostly for camping and I want a winch strong enough to pull it out of the mud or a snowy ditch but nothing excessively heavy on the front of my truck. (I'm considering a heavier winch for the bed of the truck, but that's another post later on).

What capacity / brand / model do you recommend? It can be either pto shaft driven or hydraulic driven. My parts truck had a big hydraulic driven snow plow on it which I can probably convert to drive the winch. However I would prefer the simplicity of a shaft-driven pto winch, at least for the front of the truck.

Any suggestions / sources / advice etc would be greatly appreciated. I know almost nothing about winches so I posted here, sorry. Of course price is also a major consideration factor.
Thank you.

My take on it is this, and I have worked with both types as well as electrical driven winches.
For brute strength mechanical driven takes the cake
For ease of install, electric
for a compromise between the two hyd.
Mechanical, needs a clutch somewhere in the system, often the trucks main clutch is used, this means you have to be in the truck to operate the winch safely.
Both hyd and electrical can have "remotes" to control the winch from a distance, which makes them both easier and safer to use. You can hook up snatch blocks and tie offs while near them, then move to a safer location for the pull.
With a mechanical drive, it will pull until the weakest part in the system breaks, often without warning, so you must be careful. Also you must take great care in running the PTO shaft to the front (hard) or rear (a bit easier) to make sure it will not get damaged either by normal vehicle operation or by being the lowest point and 1st to get hit going over rough terrain
Hyd is limited by the pump and motor capacity on how much torque it can transmit and speed is limited by flow capacity at full pressure. You need a hyd tank of some fair size and may be an oil cooler on the return if you are going to do a lot of long pulls.
If you have enough line and drum capacity, even the smallest electric winch, with enough snatch blocks, can pull a very heavy load, although slowly, by doubleing or tripling the load line, essentially doubleing or tripling the capacity of the winch at the cost of pulling speed. Recovery is more often best done slowly anyhow.
For an in bed winch for gin poles etc, I'd go mechanical, for a recovery winch on the front or rear, either electric or hyd, for simplicity.
I drove an old tow truck with a mechanical winch in the bed and large forward and reverse as well as clutch levers on the back of the bed, it took a lot of work but was the norm back then. Then later units had hyd controls and they were easier to use. Hyd "beavertail" trailers needed hyd for the folding and unfolding of the tail, so had hyd winches. They were ok but limited by the size of the hyd lines to the trailer and the distance from the pump. The winch was more of an "assist" then to be a dead pull recovery, but I did use it that way to load a rail car. took a snatch block and several pulls, shortening the connection each time to match the winch cable length.
Cost wise from cheap to more expensive:
electric cheapest
hyd and mechanical more money, depends on what you can source used.
Tulsa and Braden are the big names in hyd or mech, Warn in electric.

Thank you Sir, I really appreciate your encyclopedic knowledge and willingness to help and share.

I don't know the price yet but someone has offered me a hydraulic winch. Here is part of his description:
"It's a hydraulic one, 8K capacity as I recall. Obviously, a snatch block doubles that. I think it was meant for HMMVWs".

So with a snatch block it should be strong enough to pull a Loadstar out of a snowy ditch? Also he goes on to say it can be run off the power steering pump much like a civilian one. That would sure make things uncluttered and easier to install if I could do that.

So my big two questions are this: will this winch hold up to very occasional use or will it break the first time I use it to pull a stuck Loadstar; and does the Loadstar power steering pump have the power and reserve to drive this additional accessory in addition to steering the front drive axle wheels? Please excuse my ignorance of winches.
Thank you.

1st p/s pumps and res may not have the capacity to winch. Hyd motors need a fair bit of flow to do any work. I wouldn't be concerned about the load rating, as long as it has enough cable to double up if needed.
If you had the spec's on the winch motor, it would be possible to work out what it would take to drive it.
I'm trying to remember what the pony motor on one of the beaver tail trailers had, IIRC it was 10 or 12 hp Honda and it took all of that, the other trailers I ran were run off a PTO driven hyd system.
edit:
Milemaker seams to make the winches for the military
they need 3 gal/min @1400 psi to run at capacity, they need 3 gal/ min at any pressure to run at all.
Truck P/S pumps that are gear driven can produce this amount, I am not sure about belt driven ones. Also check the operating pressure, some systems run higher pressure (2000-2500)
Others they make take 1500 or more at 3.5 gal/min.
So you need to find the spec's for what P/S pump you have and how big the res is to see if it has enough capacity,

looks like the Eaton model U pump (if that is what you have) would make 1400 psi @ 3.5 gal/min so would work. However with the small res the oil would get hot very quickly. Also It wouldn't make that at idle, so the engine would have to be running faster.
IIRC the Eaton gear driven pump on my trucks was set at 4 gal/min and 1800 psi.

Wow, I don't even know how you found some of that info above.
I'm still undecided which way I want to go. But based on what's been said, and the outrageous current price of shipping anything heavy, I'm seriously leaning towards an electric winch.
I know it would be the easiest for me to hook up (electrical is one of my specialties) and safest to use. And I know I will need to make frame extensions regardless of the winch I use. So at this point in my search I'm considering this winch:

https://prowinch.com/shop/20000-lbs-ele ... ess-12v-dc

So far, for any winch I've considered buying, the shipping has been over $700. But this winch includes free shipping and its brand new.

What drawbacks can you see with this winch, other than the warranty is only 3 years. The Warn winch has a lifetime warranty, but at more than double the price. ProWinch apparently makes lots of different kinds of winches with branches in 6 different countries, so I don't think they are a fly-by-night operation. And I read somewhere that they will work up to one meter under water, so I don't think rain or snow will hurt this electric winch.
Your thoughts and opinions, please. Is this something you would consider if you were looking for a winch? Why or why not?
Thank you.

My thoughts":
1/2" cable and 20K is likely overkill, 72' of cable sounds like enough, until your mid stream and have to add chain to reach something solid.
Would require a separate battery or two with an isolator to prevent drawing down the trucks battery and having the truck die mid pull. (something the Hdy winches will not do).
I would go lighter with more cable. This(hopefully) isn't g going to need to drag the truck up a vertical wall. It is there to assist when traction alone isn't enough.
The winch on my gin pole truck is 1/2" cable and that is stiff and hard to work with. The winch is way stronger than the truck, and can easily pull it over on its side at idle in high speed. It can dead lift over 3000lbs but once you get over that the front axle comes off the ground, before even taxing the winch capacity at all.
3/8" or even 1/4" cable and more of it, would be more useful. Winching is a slow process, and that is a good thing, it is easy to get into trouble, esp working by yourself, with a winch, and speed only makes that worse. Twice I almost flipped my K-7 over working by myself (yeah, not the brightest thing I've done).
I would carefully asses your needs, and how it will be used.
I was surprised by what I found on the Milemaker site. My 1st thought is no way a P/S pump could work, but the spec's they have the the listed requirements make it look like an attractive option.
All electric's are going to have limited duty cycles. Hyd also but much longer ones. A bigger hyd res and a return line cooler and your duty cycle goes way up.
I think the key is going to be carefully assessing your needs, and then look into what is the closest match to those. The occasional real tough pull can be done with a lighter more versatile winch via the use of extension cables and snatch blocks. If every time you need to use it, you need snatch blocks and extra cable, then you would be better off with a larger cap winch. I think this is one case where you don't want to spec for the worse case, but "accessorize" to handle the worse case and keep the winch spec'd for the more common use pulls.

Hi, yes, it is only intended to be used for assist in traction. Twice, no matter how slowly and carefully I drove my front-wheel-drive car going up icy-snowy roads, it has slowly slid sideways into a ditch. And no matter how I tried to get it out, it just went deeper. If that happens to my Loadstar and 4wd doesn't get it out, then I would call on the winch. But I now avoid driving in the snow, especially on narrow mountain roads for that reason. Although it will mostly be used as a camper, I don't intend to drive through any big or wide rivers either, especially if alone.
And I can see where the winch could come in very handy moving things around the yard rather than just pushing or pulling with a vehicle. So again not a heavy use of the winch.

Not sure how I would connect an isolator - or if I should use a knife switch or electronic diode of some type. I'm still learning about winches. I would want the alternator to keep pumping current into the two batteries but not overcharge the one battery as the winch drains the other battery.
Years ago when I wired my other truck for dual batteries, I ran everything except the starter, ignition and fuel gauge off one battery and everything else off the other battery. That way I could have the truck off and still have headlights, radio and other accessories going and not worry about killing the battery too far down so it would not start. But I don't remember how I kept from over-charging the good battery when I started the truck after hours of running things off the second battery.
And with a winch its more complicated because the truck will be running when I use the winch to keep pumping more current into the auxiliary battery but I don't want to overcharge the starter/ignition battery. Or perhaps a few minutes of overcharging a battery does not matter? Or perhaps it won't overcharge and all additional current will go into the more depleted battery because electricity follows the path of least resistance?

Another area where I've got conflicting advice - the installation of the winch itself. Some have told me I should use heavy 1/2 inch steel plate to mount the winch and others have told me I should use something thinner than truck frame. But 1/2 in. plate seems overly thick and heavy. Someone was telling me I want the frame extensions and winch mounting lighter than the frame itself so in a minor collision the frame extensions will bend and not the frame itself.
Almost everyone I know has hit a deer on the highways around here. We have a lot of suicidal deer running around town. I really wish they would cull their population some but probably won't happen until some child gets stomped to death. They have no fear of people or cars. . .or trucks with winches.

So as you can see, I still have lots more to learn about winches. And more questions will be posted.
Thank you, Sir for your insight and wisdom.

Snow/mud, tire chains are the answer. I've delivered where I was pushing snow with the front of the truck, but I had three railers (chains for duals) on both sets of drive axles, while dragging the trailer through the pasture where the delivery was to be made.
One case I had to go to an oil exploration site up a mountain in Colorado, I had to chain all the tractor tires (That includes the steer) and two of the trailer tires, and I still spun all the way up, and it could not hold the truck on the way down, had to "plow" into the snow bank to come to a complete stop and remain there.
I know, people hate "hanging iron" and I am no fan of it, but it is the real solution, a winch is the solution after you didn't and slid off the path. 4x4 with chains front and rear should be nearly unstoppable in snow or mud.
There are a few ways to handle the separate battery charging issue, the success rate goes up with the cost.
As far as mounting goes, you are going to put a lot of force in a small area no matter what, so you want it stout. Ripping the frame extension off and watching while the truck slides down the hill would be small compensation that you didn't bend the frame from the pull.
My winch K-7 weighs about 3,000 lbs more than then my flatbed K-7. Some of that is in the heavy "oil field" bed, but most is in the winch mount. Both have steel flatbeds on them, the winch bed is heavier, longer and has storage boxes, but mainly it is well attached to the frame. I'd build it as solid as I could.
I've hit a few deer in my cabovers, nothing out front to protect it, took out a lot of the fiberglass front, but the truck was driveable.

Wow, that's what I love about this place - common sense. Not many places have it and not many people have it.

You're so right - don't know why I didn't think about it. Of course tire chains should be something I should always have in the truck, along with a snatch block and extra length of chain or cable or tow strap. Perhaps did not think of it because I try to avoid driving in the snow or ice.

And the winch mounting should be at least as strong as the truck's frame, if not stronger. That's just common sense. Just a few months ago I was a passenger in a new Subaru my friend bought just two months earlier. A deer jumped from hiding on the side of the road and did over $14k in damages to her new car. It took the dealer almost 3 months to repair. And a deer did massive damage to my brother's car too. But I do have a parts truck and my truck is made of metal, not plastic. So that puts to rest that concern - it will definitely be a strong winch mounting. Don't need anything pulling apart or breaking on a strong pull.

How do you feel about this winch:
https://www.smittybilt.com/product-skus ... nch-97517/

I was going to install a 200 plus amp alternator anyway when I rebuild the engine. Now I just need to decide if I want 2 or 3 batteries. I don't like power outages when camping. And I like the illusion I have free electricity when lighting the camp with battery-powered lights. And perhaps have electric AC or heat - but that's a topic for a different post.

Do all 3 batteries need to be exactly the same, or can I mix and match them? For example have a standard lead-acid battery for my starter, ignition and gas gauge but have one or two large, deep-cycle batteries to run all other accessories, including the winch?

What alternator/regulator do you recommend? Do they make a multi-voltage step regulator where the alternator puts out a higher voltage then drops down when the batteries become more fully charged? And being connected in parallel how does one prevent over-charging the one battery when big current draws are being made from the other batteries?

And/or another possibility - what about using a 24 volt alternator instead of a 12 volt? I remember once converting a 6 volt truck to 12 volts. The starter spun faster and I used a 50 ohm wire-wound resistor for the gas gauge, otherwise I don't remember anything different other than changing light bulbs. Everything is mechanical in my Loadstar except the radio which I won't be using (it just fills the hole in the dash), I'll be getting a new gas gauge and sender for the custom gas tank so that can be 24 volt as well, and I'll need some type of resistor for the voltage drop for the coil. Am I missing anything?
Or I'm thinking if I had 4 batteries - two sets of two wired like having two 24 volt batteries, I could tap off one battery for the starter, ignition and gas gauge and tap off the set for running the winch and everything else in 24 volt mode. I think I'm overthinking this, aren't I? No advantage to that over just having 2 or 3 twelve volt batteries in parallel.

Please excuse all my questions. Thank you again, Sir.