has anybody tried a manual winch??

[chuckiedog04]

well i was thinking of putting some sort of manual hand winch on my old 200. since it doesnt have a battery to set up an electric winch i thought possibly one from a boat trailer or something? if someone has one they should post a picture of it, it would be greatly appreciated. thanks

[Xpress]

It would not be too difficult to convert the bike to a battery system. A lot of people think it is a daunting task, but with the availability of batteries, regulator/rectifiers and knowledge about how to do it, there isn't really a reason why not. Plus you get the reliability and power of an electric winch.

Basically, all you have to do is convert the lighting coil portion of the stator to a floating ground (which basically means you take the ground off of the lighting coil, and solder a wire to it to use as your negative lead, so your frame is no longer grounded), run a $40 Trail-Tech Voltage Regulator/Rectifier, then wire in a 4AH 12V motorcycle battery.

Sounds like a mouthful, but it's not really a lot to do. Someone who is handy with a soldering iron can convert an AC, non battery bike to a DC battery bike in about an hour and a half. The other advantage is that you can run brighter lights, or lights requiring DC power (HID's or LED's) so you can see a lot easier at night :D

On the other hand, if you don't want to bother with all of that, I'd think that you could make a boat winch like this work:

http://www.boatwinch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Boat-Winches.jpg

Where you could mount it to a front rack. I'd think there would be some disadvantages to a boat winch though, because you would have to get off the bike to crank it, which removes weight off of the bike, which can allow it to slide a bit easier. I have seen some cases where the winch bike was being winched in :lol:

[just ben]

i would convert like express said or just ride with a friend that has a winch. it may cost few more bucks to do an elaectric winch but the first time you crank yourself out of a mudhole your gonna wish you spent the extra 150.00

[Xpress]

Yeah, and the cost of converting to a battery system isn't as expensive at it might sound either, you'd be looking at less than $100 when all is said and done, and that leaves open the option for an electric start conversion, or using an engine with an e-start (not sure how universal the BR's engines are, but it's nice to have e-start).

[Sparkplugkid]

I mounted one like the one in the picture Xpress posted on my lawntractor. it is annoying to get off all the time. id convert it electric

[H2Sbass]

Really wish I had a camera so I could post pics. I have a boat winch mounted on the front of my 110. ( I know who needs a winch on a 110, just pick it up and throw it right ). I mounted mine so that the crank input faces up and using a peice of pipe as an extension I can crank the winch with my left arm and still steer and throttle with my right. Try to have your cable ( or strap ) feed on to the drum so it is center of the forks or else the winch will "steer" the bike. It is a slow method but it does work. As far as an electric winch goes, I think a 200 only puts out like 90 watts or something on the lighting coil. A power winch will likely draw way too many amps and just bog the engine out or kill battery way too fast. A smaller come a long is nice route too as you can just as easily relocate it wherever you need too. For example, too pull your self out backwards.