Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

Afternoon guys,

I have been looking at the Hi Lift off road kits ("ORK"). It seems like people want ridiculous money to land them here. So I have been thinking about buying a couple of 80 grade chain slings (see for example here: http://tinyurl.com/jqahsaf) and making up my own kit using proper safety rated shackles, clevis hooks and the like. Is there any particular reason I should not do this?

Would anyone else be interested in this sort of arrangement? You will never have the kind of pulling power that you will with an electric winch but it is more versatile and probably a whole lot easier to carry around. I found that the one problem with the electric winches is that you are usually going forward only, whereas that is not always what you want or need. I reckon that while this will be a lot more work, it is certainly better than having nothing.

Clem the link doesn't work, so i don't know if i am preaching to the converted, but have you ever looked at a "cable grip"? They are expensive, but two of them could overcome the jack's limitation of limited stroke.

Its also called a come along we used them at eskom the harder you pull the better they grip try elifant lifting equipment you are gonna need a coil of cable .....

Thanks Peter. I have tried fixing the URL.

I actually have an original Tirfor that I was given years ago by a friend; he used to use to use it in the decades after WW2 when they used to travel in East Africa. The thing is indestructible. IIRC its the 3.2 ton one. It uses its own proprietary crush proof cable. It works very, very well. I have even modified my Hi Lift jack handle so its reversible and usable with the Tirfor and I have used it as far afield as Liuwa plains (lang storie). BUT its a real nuisance to try to carry along. The unit itself is big and bulky and the cable is, if anything, even worse (though I used to wrap it around the bulbar). I need to carry the Hi Lift jack anyway and so am thinking that its really not that often I use a winch anyway so multi-purposing the Hi Lift makes total sense, if all it means is carrying a few lengths of a chain and a bracket and bow shackle or two. Saves weight, space and drama. Also, if you are pulling a trailer, something that is a flexible as a Tirfor or Hi-Lift winch arrangement makes a lot of sense.

In any event, with some tracks to put under the wheels, a jack mate to lift the wheels and a decent spade you'll probably never need to winch more than a few meters to get out of trouble. I hope! :-)

Edit: Maybe I should just make up a box for the Tirfor and chuck it somewhere in the trailer or on the if there's no trailer.... Or something.

Clem the hi lift jack winch that i have seen works similar to a turfoil the problem is the stroke ...so even 5m of cable with a come along works well ...the travel on the jack is very small and needs to be ajusted problem comes when jack needs to be moved to new position. ....how do you hold it? ....mabe after all the extra weight ect a winch with 3 x 20m recovery straps is not a bad idea. ....you can even pull yourself back by passing cable under the car...

Hi Clem
We got stuck in the pans while recovering a landrover , so there were two patrols to there diffs and a landy also to the diff with
straps so tight that we could play a tune on them , no winch but Hi lift jack ,we used it as winch and we were able to get my car out
with a lot of adjusting and jacking , what would have made our lives a bit easier would have been chains that we could lock
when adjusting /opening the hilift jack so we did not loose all the stroke which we had jacked , hard work but also fun
will look for a pic tonight and post it
I have seen grab hooks the use when tying down the earthmoving machine with chains they lock into each link ,don't know how strong they
are but I ill put them in my recovery kit with 4 or 5 meters of chain when I do go back to the pans ,
come along winch is handy but as you said it takes up space
also you could join two hilift together to get more stroke , you only need to winch a meter or two to get out of a bog down
regards
juice

Hi Clem
Go check out http://www.anchors.co.za
just had a look grab hooks are rated to 14 tons with 13mm chain
juice

Juice the link goes to a baking site...

Tinus that was just for you
Forgot the s on the end
www.anchors.co.za

juice wrote:Hi Clem
We got stuck in the pans while recovering a landrover , so there were two patrols to there diffs and a landy also to the diff with
straps so tight that we could play a tune on them , no winch but Hi lift jack ,we used it as winch and we were able to get my car out
with a lot of adjusting and jacking , what would have made our lives a bit easier would have been chains that we could lock
when adjusting /opening the hilift jack so we did not loose all the stroke which we had jacked , hard work but also fun
will look for a pic tonight and post it
I have seen grab hooks the use when tying down the earthmoving machine with chains they lock into each link ,don't know how strong they
are but I ill put them in my recovery kit with 4 or 5 meters of chain when I do go back to the pans ,
come along winch is handy but as you said it takes up space
also you could join two hilift together to get more stroke , you only need to winch a meter or two to get out of a bog down
regards
juice

Thanks Juice. The original Hi Lift off road kit includes grab hooks with the chains. I am looking to effectively duplicate that. Its not hard and the parts are available.