Posted by Charlie on April 17, 1999 at 01:13:08:
In Reply to: a good time to discuss PTO winch safety posted by MT Bob on April 16, 1999 at 15:43:18:
Bob's comments are all accurate and appropriate. If you use your PTO winch a lot, especially if you frquently use it alone, and have some cash to spare, consider converting it to hydraulic. It's equally powerful, but return-to-center hydraulic valves have that "deadman" characteristic of shutting off when you let go. The power can be modulated by slight hand pressure. If you really have a lot of money to spare, electro-hydraulic controls give the safety of remote control like of an electric winch.
A PTO to hydraulic conversion requires an adapter from the PTO to a pump (I don't specifically know the part # for one for the PW/M37 PTO), plumbing, valves, reservoir, and hydraulic motor on the winch where the driveshaft enters, it drives the worm directly.
Especially consider this if you are building a truck "custom", plan a powerful winch based on a PTO winch, plan a PTO off the transmission or transfer case, but haven't purchased all the parts yet.
Charlie