Small stuff annoys me. With that in mind:

I have been watching the Ram videos, I actually enjoyed most of them but the latest two pissed me off. The one where they do a lap of Texas to celebrate the Truck of Texas award has a small error; they misspell the state high school power-lifting champion's last name. No biggie really but I am sure it was upsetting to him.

The one that really annoyed me is the one where they lend a Ram owner a Power Wagon for a day and he take is 4 wheeling. At the end of the day he gets stuck (seems a little staged) and they use the winch to get out. Whilst doing so they attach the cable to a tree with no tree saver (big no no) and then attach it back to itself (another big no no).

I think if you are going to spend the time to do this sort of thing, quadruple check your editing, and have a SME on hand for any specialised tasks. You do not have to show the SME but at least have them there for consulataion so you do not make a rookie error.

That is all.

 

I have a much larger pet peeve, Those commercials where they had Eminen drive the 200 and at the end Imported from Detroit that was cool but when they put the Minivan and the Chally and the 300 and lump them all in Imported from Detroit it kinda bugs me because those three are made in Canada. Maybe they should say Imported from North America to be fair!

 

Maybe this shows my lack of knowledge of winches (I've only used one a hand full of times), but I've never used "tree savers" (whatever those are) and I always latch the hook back on the cable. How else are you supposed to do it?

 

A tree-saver strap is a short strap that is put around a tree to avoid having the winch cable cut into the tree (thus protecting it). If you use one of these you also eliminate the issue of having to hook back onto the cable itself, which could pretty easily cut through the cable where the hook is applying intense pressure. The former is environmentally friendly and the latter is a big safety concern.

Rob

 

Tree saver looks like a tow strap, except like 6 feet long and about twice as wide... it is used as described above. A tree's circulatory system is just below the bark, so when you wrap straight around the tree and the winch cuts in it is the equivalent of cutting every major artery in a human at the same time. The tree is then living dead and will fall over in about a year.

Hooking back to a cable is probably not going to cut it straight away. It will however kink it, and that kink is a weak point that will fail at the most inopportune moment.

What you really should do is use a tree saver wrapped around a post or a rock, attach a ****** block to that and then run your line back to your truck frame. This has the effect of doubling the gear ratio on the winch, which increases pulling power and cuts down on the wear on your winch and your battery.