Winching techniques/Capstan winch 

The capstan's big advantage is like other PTO winches is can extract a convoy of trucks without overheating or cooking a battery. When i ran one hidden behind the grille of a 3 door Rangie the V8 didn't work up a sweat. It once pulled 17 trucks out of a river in one sitting.

i love that style of winch, was thinking of leaving my drum winch empty and feed wraps around it to operate this way but its too awkward

Awesome stuff!

This video should have 10 Million views! The Capstan winch is an absolute thing of beauty! New subscriber here!

If you are using a capstan winch on your own - for safety - fit an external kill switch for the engine near the fairlead - you can also fit a cleat to maintain tension when you stop so you can apply brake or chocks ?

Excellent video excellent idea, you might want to pull that rope at 90 degrees, if that rope ever breaks , it'll whip the skin off you.

OH! mind your fingers when putting COILS of rope on the capstan

My bit of info on large river boats they use a cotton or poly cotton line on their capstain

This is where talking to a sailor first helps. The winch line you're using is twice the diameter it needs to be to work properly with that capstan. That's why you're having such a hard time holding it you can't get enough wraps around the drum to tail with light effort. For winch line that size you're looking at a capstan that's almost a foot in diameter.

I can see you have put some effort into the video fair play. Your technique of pulling under the roller scares me as it would be easy to have one wrap slip over another and lock on plus when pulling really hard the wraps can lock on and you need to throw a loop of slack to unlock immediately. Your missing the point of these winches a little though, they really are best for pulling things too a stationary Land Rover rather than for self recovery, I do tree work so also play with rigging a little mine has a Fairey 4000ld unit infront of a 200tdi and have pulled some ridiculously large bits of sawlog with it and winched over trees, ive broken two thinner than standard but not a 40 spec one think the shear pins are a minimum break strain so probably pull beyond them I had to make chocks for the front tyres as it will just pull all four wheels otherwise. The natural ropes do not melt onto the bollard but they also are typically very low stretch so considered "static" a "dynamic" rope has elasticity so after pulling with 1-2ton of tension you don't want all that stored in an elastic rope your holding onto. Never stand in a wrap and never wrap rope around your wrist etc!!! I really should get my own video of mine pulling logs or trees over one day just dont think about it at the time when I am trying to get a job done.

make a video on using a chinese windlas to winch your car

Brilliant!! Video 👊

Right on mate. I’ve always wanted to see one of those working 🍺

In the states we call that sack a Burlap sack.... Its what cattle feed comes in.

Hello! My Name is Anthony Vega, and I am from Costa Rica, I really like your videos, I would like to know if with you I could get accesorios For my series 3? I thank you for an answer and I congratulate you for your videos.

Capstan winch just screams safari!

Good point about keeping those old techniques alive Geoff! Great video as always - ATB from Belgium

So I know you have to cover your self but you don’t need 2 people to work the winch as long as it’s out of gear and not facing down hill.If there’s any problems while winching you just loosen the end you are holding and it stops pulling cheers all

ランドローバーに秀樹感激Goodです=3

12:25 Yeah, I get the picture - you're an absolute dipstick. For safety's sake, you should be stood beside the vehicle and not in front of it (offside) and the rope you're holding does not need to go through the front roller either ! I'm pretty sure 1 or both of those headlight surrounds has been fitted incorrectly too !

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. :)

Nice to see the capstan being used, I used them for years on my Landies & my trawler & with polyprop & nylon rope, but never once melted it, simply because it was always wet, so a bottle of water's always handy when not using Hemp, although it's a lovely rope to use with a capstan. Good interesting video my friend

There's no reason why you couldn't loop the rope over the fairlead and up to the driver's window and maintain tension while you're sat in it

Hello Geoff, Thank you for this very interesting demonstration. I already saw it once some time ago. I had to look at it a second time because, in between, I have looked around and test drive a 1977 109 Serie III 919 type 2.25 diesel soft top for sale. This car is also equipped with a capstan such as yours. I have one question: when do you engage the capstan to the motor? You did not show this in this video. Is it with the motor on or do you have to stop it to be able to engage the capstan? I tried to engage it (gently) with the motor in motion and I stopped when I heard some mechanical protest... Should I have insisted? Or do you do this operation with the motor off? If it is with the motor on, how do you move the axle, progressively or firmly in one quick action? I think you can disengage the capstan with the motor on (logically). I know... A lot of dumb questions for something that is so obvious to you that you did not film it. Tschuss.

"Don't do this at home" - honestly I do not intent to, I will do it abroad far out of sight of "home" (obviously not a comment for the "home ist where Your Landy stops" - fraction) 😂

That might have been useful in 1914 but nowadays it's just apain in the ass eyesore

That fiber comes from jute plant. We called it golden fiber when we exported few decades ago. Then the world stopped using it. 😢

Yes I agree it is a thing of beauty. However my girlfriend doesn't think so

Legendary capstan..thanks for the video..very clear and informative.. 🙌

The ozzy honesty is truly endearing !!! CHEERS

So simple. Great video.

The reason why a capstan or drum end winch is obsolete on vehicles is because of no proper control. Get a riding turn and no stop button on Land Rover PTO.it's desaster. !!!! It's rigged incorrectly too. I have used winches since a boy. Now 79.!!

Very Good video, I would have liked to have seen a look underneath to see how its all connected up to the gearbox. Maybe if you do another video sometime ,You don't see many videos on pto stuff, it all very interesting to me.

We used to buy these ropes as 'waggon traces' but they disappeared from agricultural suppliers years ago! Of course hand winches of this type are all over sailing yachts, holding the rope is called 'tailing' the winch & many are 'self tailing' because being manually operated you 'pump' the winch handle to actuate the winch.

Hi from New Zealand just subscribed today, someone had a comment say why couldn't you sit in the cab ov the rover and keep tension on the from there. I was thinking the same thing, was wondering if you ever tried it maybe it's a hole new video for you to film , just wondering if it works 🤔

I love that winch - great Video - thank´s a lot!

For the first 8 minutes of waffly video, was it intentional to have the rope around the capstan the wrong way ?

Ive seen a similar capstan on a jeep here. Hasnt broken in the many years I have been around. Its a 1956 model jeep.

Nice video. Is a nice piece of history I had one in my ex series 1 was and Aeroparts the problem is that the shear pin is rated to 1800 kg and to me is not sufficient power to take out a really stuck series

That type of rope is widley used in the states.

A car as classic as antique VW, Mercedes and Mustang!

Surely using that winch would be faster than walking into town

looks like a D series Aero Capstan, in which case rated to 3000lbs pull at best (and no shear pin), so the 5 tonne rope would be a bit overkill, you could get by with a lighter 3/4 inch rope and still be twice the breaking strain of the winch

very good video, thanks for all the details and the quality of the explanations.

Good to see the series 3 rolling around and the winch in action. Thanks for the great video

Just subscribed, we love our capstan winch, great video 🚜🪵🇺🇸

11:45 If you'd bothered to grease and maintain that roller, it'd actually roll like it's supposed to. You did pack your grease gun didn't you ?

10:00 KLUTZ - had the hand brake on! - without, one turn of rope will pull the LR ! Leave the handbrake on and pull it !

Salut my friend super car super video subscribe subscribe 😎😎😎😎

Awesome stuff as ever! Just finished restoring my early Fairey capstan, very enjoyable. You mention Mick O, I can recommend one of his Carawagon or Dormobile roof racks, they are just cool... Keep up the great videos, always enjoy them.

Very cool

Classic

Geoff when i ran a capstan i found a tall narrow garden hose reel made of 3/8" rod. With a 100ft of 3/4" rope on it, i would only run out as much as i needed. Being so open the coil dried nicely in storage. So much easier to set up with not a tangle in sight and fast to put away. Next Landy i put the winch on will likely get a custom horisontal reel above the spare. Cheers from NZ

Great video.. love this winch! This thing is so bloody dangerous, but we're all grown men here and this is so cool :)

If you want a series 3 hand throttle kit I have one somewhere. It may have been thrown away but i'm happy to look. It came from my 109 FFR. I converted it to a 200TDI and removed it from the interior. I did not realize they were rare or even desirable as you say.

Had a 'Bad'ford with a capstan and a piece of wire fitted to the carb through the radiator grille forming an eye on the outside to control the engine speed when winching. Some military series and Bedfords were fitted standard with an external throttle device, makes winching easier. Best to fit a electric switch near the winch breaking power to the coil in emergency circumstances on petrols or a electric pump with killswitch on diesels as clothing and rope can lead to the operator being trapped, although non original, safety first.

Thanks for the video Geoff, I have just bought a Fairey capstan winch for my Series IIA so looking forward to getting to use it. Looks like the rope is sold out on LR Bits in the UK so need to find one in the US, any reco's on where to acquire one. What are your thoughts on the Fairey vs. Aeroparts?

Capstans are strong. Ships use them for mooring. Bad thing about natural line is snap back. We used aramid line which doesn’t snap back. It just collapses

Why can't you edit your video in a more efficient manner so that people don't waste their time watching your unnecessary waffle. Pls respect other's valuable time.

What you haven't pointed it is the main advantage of a Capstan Winch. The pull of the winch remains constant. There is no increase in diamiter that you get in a drum winch. I'd suggest you still use gloves, one slip and hemp will give you a nasty rope burn. A Capstan is better used as a fixed point , pull the load to you, hence the use for pulling cables. I can give you the number of someone in Wales (Bettween England and Ireland Wales) who can probably get you a hand throttle set up. They were common on Army FFW and FFR vehicles.

Pulled my SIIA off a pebble beach on the Isle of Wight back in 1994 with one of those .

great video. lookin for a capstan with for my series 3, always into anything landy and if its for 4wding, well, thats a big tick in my book. cheers mate

Great video! I needed to understand how a windlass works in my line of electrical engineering (stringing conductors) and this video was great at explaining the operation

Do you think you could get someone who knows what they're doing to make your videos ? 90% boring waffle and all the interesting bits missed out !

Is there a video of the unit and when you fitted it. Great bit of kit.

I'd never seen one demonstrated. Big, big thank you.

Good instructions on the winch.

So you can't use a starting handle on this one??

What kind of engine do you have in this SWB?

Now I know why you don't see capstan winches anymore. I reckon one serious bogging, throw in a 90 degree side pull (like I did a few weeks back) or even under car reverse pull and trying to use that thing to get out will have you searching the internet for WARN electric self recovery winches. I'll look forward to the eBay ad... Landrover capstan winch, only used once.

Brilliant, great, now all I have to do is to restore my capstan winch and fit it to the series 2

NONSENSE-----that junk rope won't do 1 ton, let alone 5. Get ready for failure if you try for 5. You are another accident waiting to happen. Some synthetic rope is good, some is not.