Plenty of people admire a 4WD Winch as being the pinnacle of easy 4WD recoveries, and has become a symbol of how hardcore your rig is, until recently price tags made a good quality 4WD winch unattainable and reserved only for the ‘off-roading elite’…. NOT ANYMORE!

These days thanks to the hard work and effort made by Adventure Kings Research and Development team, you can get a high performance 12,000lb winch for under $400 including the control box wireless options and delivery!

So you have fitted this you beaut, winch to your rated bull bar following the instructions provided, and now scratching your head on how to use the gosh darn thing!

We’ll walk you through the basics on how your Domin8r X 12,000lb winch works so you don’t have to figure it out in a tense situation in the bush,

PLEASE NOTE : This is no substitute for proper training!

Firstly, we recommend testing your new winch out in a situation where winching may not be required for an example, a slight incline with no obstacles, this ‘easy’ test will give you the confidence to pull out your line and get rigged up when the tracks call for your new secret weapon.

Before anything else, make sure you have a rated winching recovery kit like the Hercules Essential Recovery Kit or the Hercules Complete Recovery Kit, these include all the bits you need for simple straight winching and even more complex double line pulls, this is a good time to connect your winch controller to the control box (or the wireless module) .

To start winching you need to identify a solid anchor point to pull off, this has to be strong enough to hold the load of your whole vehicle so pick a sturdy tree and unroll your tree trunk protector strap and wrap around the tree.

Depending on the distance you need to winch will determine the next step, if it’s only a short distance for your tyres to reach solid ground, we recommend using the 20m winch extension strap to get more reach and to make less work spooling your winch cable back in.

Once your anchor point is established, and you have unrolled your winch extension strap, you can can connect your tree trunk protector and extension strap using one of the included Rated Bow Shackles.

(PRO TIP: when tightening Rated Bow Shackles, tighten them fully, and then loosen them a quarter of a turn. This allows the shackle to flex with the forces during a recovery without biting and seizing, resulting in being stuck fastened)

It’s now time to unspool cable!

There are 2 ways to pull out the included 9.5mm Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene line, one is hitting the winch out button on your remote which is slow and time consuming, the other is by disengaging the clutch on the winch drum by turning the handle on the unit 90 degrees this will allow you to pull out as much rope as you need by bypassing the automatic brake on the winch unit.

Once you have enough cable unspooled you can  hook the clevis hook directly to the end of the winch extension strap this is a great time to use the Winch Dampener included in the Hercules kit, in case of setup failure, this Dampener it will arrest any dangerous metal components and add safety to the system.
You are now ready to rock and roll (after you reengage the clutch handle!).
Now you are all hooked up the winch controllers big red button will give you absolute control, to avoid damaging your 12 Volt system we recommend running the motor of your vehicle and if possible upping the RPM to provide enough amps from the alternator to unburden your battery.

Hit the spool in button and you’re off and away.

But wait?… I hear you asking, what is this pulley thing for?

The Snatch Block included in both Hercules Recovery Kits is a great accessory for redirecting the pull of a winch cable, it can also be used to double the pulling strength and half the speed of pull for extremely sticky situations where more control and power is required.

To establish a double line pull with our Snatch Block, instead of running the winch rope’s clevis hook directly to your anchor setup as described above, we walk out 2x as much line and walk back to our vehicle, it will now attach directly to one of your vehicles front, rated recovery points.

We now walk our Snatch Block out to our anchor point and feed the loop of rope directly through the pulley. The pulley can now be fastened to the anchor using our left over Rated Bow Shackle, the Winch Dampener should be used over the top of the Snatch Block setup as this will stop components from injuring or killing bystanders or damaging vehicles in case of failure