Does anyone have any ideas on installing a manual handwinch in a driveway to pull a caravan up it? The driveway is straight and runs from the pavement to the back garden where there is a garage with a solid raft type concrete floor. I thought the best way would be to mount it in the garage on the floor, but I would need quite a length of cable to reach to the road at the front, about 60 feet. So I reckon a length of rope and the winch cable would do that. The caravan only needs to be pulled up the first 20 feet or so, the the ground is level beside the house. Reversing it with the car is OK, but the initial 90 degree reverse is on full lock, so to speak, and uphill due to the narrow road I'm on. It is impossible to reverse the van downhill into the drive due to the wall between my drive and the neighbour. The idea in my head is to stop the caravan outside, on the road, handbrake on, this is on a slope, and take it off the car. Then swivel it round by 90 degrees so it is pointing beam end first at the drive. Then attach rope etc. and crank it up the drive. Where and how to attach a windlass style hand winch is probably the biggest problem, as I'd like access to the drive with the car too, once I've dragged the 'van out of the way.
Sink two lengths of scaffold pipe about 75cm long into the driveway and then mount the winch on a frame that will drop into the pipes within the drive. If you put the pipes in with about a 20degree slope the winch will pull into the pipes. The important thing is to keep the point of pull as close to the ground as possible (winch can be as high as you want to enable easy cranking and then lead through a pulley block at ground level). There used to be a device on the market pre-fabricated to the above principles but I've not seen it advertised for a few years, but I have one sitting in my garage in case my motor mover packs up at a critical time.
Be very careful as to where you attach the winch cable if you are pulling up the drive in reverse as it is difficult to find a point strong enough. I have a harness that fits to the axle near to the mounting points but even then I get a bit nervous about damaging the running gear.
------------- 'A sure cure for sea-sickness is to sit under a tree'
I used to do this before the mover. I got an electric winch mounted on a square peice of steel the n sunk a slightly larger peice into the drive. Atached hook to the front of the hitch and using an old battery for power pressed s button and up she came.
------------- live for today as tomorrow ma never come.
You'll need to have a good mounting in a good thickness of strong concrete to withstand the deadpull of a caravan up a slope. I'd consider fixing a winch mounting to the garge floor using large rawlbolts. If you wrap the rawlbolt receiver with paper when you put them into the holes, you can remove the bolt to take the winch away leaving the fixing in the concrete for next time. If it were me, I'd cut some bolts down & put bolts back into the ground with large flat washers to keep the fixing happy until you need to use it again..
You say your slope is the first 20 feet with the following 40 feet to your garage being level ground. is there not a risk of the winch rope rubbing through on the top of this slope as you pull your van up the hill?? This would concern me as the rope is going to be very tight with the weight on it & would be a lethal weapon if it were to snap due to it rubbing through.
To be honest, we were thinking of having a winching point put in here to pull our van into the drive forwards (I used to reverse the last one in & it got pinched) I decided to go for a mover on the van & I wouldn't be without one now. Much better than a home based winch as I can now move the van with ease anywhere I need to. Our mover cost £900 but i've seen them advertised a lot cheaper nowadays & IMO much safer than winching a van on a slope from a standing start. Perhaps you'd update this post to let us know how you get on with it.
Like BB, we also spent £900 on a mover, wonderful gadget, but used a hand winch be fore. All the sugestions are very good and interesting if a little complicated. My own arangement was far simpler, the winch was fitted with a 50mm tow ball and just went into the van hitch. Only need to make fast the other end of the cable. Even a piece of 4X4 timber just longer than the garage door is wide and placed across the inside of the door frame will do. Loop the cable around it and put the hook back on the cable. You then walk alongside the hitch winding as you go. No , it wont pull the door frame out of the garage unless it's already in a state of colapse. Very simple and set up and disassembled in seconds, plus it works. Once the van is moving there is very little load on the cable. The initial inertia is the time of greatest load, but even this is no big deal. Given the weight of the van and the angle of incline, it is possible to caculate the load required to move from a standing start, but we wont go into the physics, sugest you try it.............Mick
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Topic: Fitting handwinch in driveway
