Recently we noticed that several winch manufacturers are supplying winches with thimble-less steel cable eyes. The ends of the steel cables are simply formed into an eye shape and crimped with a swage sleeve. Most conventional wire rope thimbles end up distorted and crushed after a hard pull anyways, so we understand the move to eliminate this piece of hardware.
At our last destructive test session, we were able to pull test a thimble-less 3/8 wire rope against a 7/16 diameter 6Al-4V Grade 5 Titanium pin. The wire rope was in the form of a common lifting sling and was attached by the common basket configuration. The pin is standard equipment on our new smaller UltraHook XTV for the side by side UTV market.
What did we learn?
As expected and due to the D/d cable violation, the wire rope broke on the backside of the titanium pin at approximately 18,000 pounds. The small UltraHook XTV came out of the test undamaged with no measurable material yielding and the pin was easily removed. Is a winch hook that does not yield at 18K overkill for the side by side market? Probably, but we also designed this smaller hook to be a future favorite of racers looking to equip their full size race cars with the strongest, safest and lightest winch hook on the market.
Engineered, Tested, and Made In The USA.

свернуть