NEIKO 02256A Come Along Winch, 5-Ton (10,000 Lbs) Pulling Capacity, 10Ft, 3 Hook, Heavy Duty Power Cable Come Along Tool with Dual Gears, Hand Winch Cable, Automotive Hoist Winch Puller, Recovery Gear

WARNING! SAFETY ALERT! UPDATE: 8/30/11 I've been using two of these Come-A-Longs since 2007. A failure occurred on 8/29/11 that could have caused serious injury or death. I always inspect this equipment before use. Even so, close inspections while pulling heavy loads is sometimes hard to do. Look closely at my uploaded photo image on the product page. Notice the bolts or steel pins that hold the hook and pulley. These bolts are held in place by paper-thin, U-Shaped Retainer Clips seated into a shallow grove around the tip of the bolt. If one of these retainer clips is accidentally bumped during use, it can dislodge and the bolt can come free suddenly releasing your load. This happened to me. These 5-ton pullers weigh 18 pounds each. When working with these Come-a-longs in conjunction with various cables and ropes, this can easily happen without notice. This is a serious safety issue. I'm replacing these stock bolts and U-Shaped retainer clips with hardened steel bolts and lock nuts coated with Red Locktite 271 which must be heated to 500 degrees to remove. Coating the threads with JB Weld would also work. I strongly suggest anyone else using these Come-a-longs do the same. It seems that I was wrong in my early reviews of this product. I apologize to those who called it cheap. I should have listened. BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY. GOOD LUCK. Heavy duty and top quality. As far as I can tell, since I don't have a 5-ton scale, the actual capacity is probably over 5-tons. I had several huge trees, 90-foot hardwoods, that needed to come down. With 14,000 lb. test-strength bullrope in the top of the target tree and the pully anchored with log-chain to the base of another tree, I began cranking the lever. I wanted to make certain the tree fell exactly where I wanted. I had to back off to keep from pulling some out of the trees out of the ground, root ball and all, before laying a chainsaw to them. This puller works - and it appears to be made well enough that I feel safe using it. That's very important. I inspected every detail before I put it to use. I could not find any markings indicating where it was made. That might be important to some. When placed next to the standard 2-ton come-a-long, it is easy to see the difference in size, weight and quality. Two connected in tandem to 14,000 lb. bull rope is sufficient to pull a monster hickory tree that is leaning over a house and make it fall away from the house. Tree experts wanted $800.00 for the job. I did it for less than $100.00. UPDATE: 5-9-10 After nearly two years of use, the only complaint I have is the spring clips on the hooks bend easily and at times refuse to release whatever is in the metal hook. Recently, I broke a section of bullrope rated at 9500 lbs. test strength. The running bowline knot I had looped onto the steel hook held. The rope snapped in a place where nothing was touching it. I'll use only 23,000 lb. test bullrope from now on. And for those who are wondering why I don't use chain, chain does not stretch. Bullrope does. When 200 feet of bullrope is tightened to the limits to the top of a tall hickory or oak, several thousand of pounds of force continue to pull the tree in the right direction for several feet even as the tree begins to fall. The average DIYer will never need more power than this. If I was needing 5-tons of pulling power on a commercial application, I'd look for an OSHA approved 10-ton device. There is an old military saying that goes like this: Always ask for double of what you need if you expect to get what you need.

This is a nice well built unit. Work perfectly.

Comes with a decent wire cable, easy to handle. The ratchet is simple enough to use, just read the instructions first. The free wheel release is not so intuitive, and i found it easier to release it from the underside while pulling the cable, rather than the instructions which suggest pushing the release from the top. The slip hooks provided are adequate, but not great, i replaced mine with higher quality ones, as i have plenty in stock. A plus for this type of puller is that you can detach the end hook and switch from double to single line, which halves the load capacity, but doubles the potential working length without resetting the pull and doubles the speed of the pull. It is strong, but make sure you keep it clean, and dry it off after usage, otherwise it will likely rust very quickly. But if looked after and stored clean and dry, i would expect a decent service life of many years, from this puller.

I just had to buy a new one after 6 months but it was my fault. The poor thing took quite the beating, and tried its very best. I tried to use it to put a track on heavy machinery, and know the limits of this product, and it is very impressive. I was using my truck as an anchor point, and it was pulling my truck backwards with the parking brake set. Instead of realizing, I was putting way too much pressure on the come along, I scotched my wheels. Then put the tracks in forward motion, trying to roll the track on the rest of the way, when I heard a loud boom. At first, I thought something broke on the machine. When I got out and looked the cable snapped. Not a gear, the freaking cable. lol. I did not even know it was possible to snap a metal cable. If I put a new cable in that come along, it would be good as new, but I wasn’t sure where to go to put new cable in it, so I just purchased another one. And yes, I know I’m an idiot for trying to put a track on this way. But I can attest to the come alongs durability.

The issue I had was that the load hook was missing from the hanging/doubling pully. I didn't notice this on receipt and unfortunately didn't use the winch until after the return window had closed. I have reached out to the manufacturer to see if they will supply the missing part. Depending on how that goes, I will update the review appropriately. As per several of the one star reviews, releasing cable tension can be unintuitive. This is really a matter of knowing how. This one isn't really any more difficult than any other winch of similar design. There is a trick to it, and if you are not familiar with how this is done, I suggest you Google "'Releasing Tension on a Harbor Freight Come-Along" for a good instructional video. It will probably be an "oh, duh" moment when you see the video. Update: The manufacturer sent a completely new winch, when all I needed was a load hook. So happy there. They stood behind their product. In the mean time I was able to use the previous winch to pull down at over10 hung up trees. The winch works like a charm, and pulls down even large, 12-14 inch hung up pines with ease. So far I actually haven't run into a case where I even needed the extra pulling power of the doubling pully. Again, the cable release does take a bit of practice to get used to. But it becomes second nature when you get the hang of it.

Needs a spring to keep the tooth engaged, IMHO.

Ten times better than my previous one. Shifted my shed single handed approx 20m without a problem.

Producto de buena calidad y la entrega rapidisima.

Strong.

Well built. Heavy product

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