Truck winches and winch straps mostly have been seen on flatbeds, a big chunk of flatbeds sold with winches installed, when the drivers put the loads on the truck, they only need winch straps and winch bars to tie loads down. Truck winch comes in with a few different flavors and sizes, we have slide in winches, weld on winches and some other winches, usually the weld on winches are sold with the new flatbeds, and the sizes of the winches will be 2” or 4”, you will be able to use 2” or 4” winch straps with them respectively, of course you can put 3” winch straps in the 4” winches, but that’s not something you will see every day.
The concept of truck winches with winch straps are pretty straight forward, the component of both truck winch and ratchet that the tie down straps are inserted into for tightening the whole web tie down straps called mandrel, the mechanism to tighten the straps on truck winch is different than the self contained ratchets, you will need the help of winch bars to tighten the winch straps. The barrel across the winch body has holes at one end, a gear at the other end, the part between the winch body is mandrel, you can insert the webbing into it, close the brake on the gear will allow you the tighten the straps over the load, since the gear is only allowed to go one direction, When unloading your flatbed, you can open the brake on the gear, loose the strap a bit, get the hook off and retract the winch strap by turning the winch barrel the other way, when you are at it you will find it’s so easy, even…can dot it. To turn your winch barrel you will definitely need a winch bar, no one can do it with bare hands, besides, it’s required by law to use a winch bar with truck winches.
There usually are 2 kind of standard winch bars, chromated one and black one, and two different combination winch bars, chromated and painted half yellow, you can find them online or locally. To get which kind of winch bar depends on one’s priority and preference, all winch bars will serve the same purpose, they are just steel sticks with some tweaks after all.
