A Story of Indecision and Frivolous Spending

PS- once you toss on the tow hooks, you'll understand the poor value of your free thimble.

Excuses my ignorance but why do you feel that thimbles don't add value? Or is it the particular brand?
 
Excuses my ignorance but why do you feel that thimbles don't add value? Or is it the particular brand?

I think it is the brand. From what I can tell, the factor 55 thimbles have some poor design features that cause them to be less useful and more dangerous. The older factor 55 design was even worse.

I just received my TRE rope a few days ago so I’m looking to learn more about thimbles. Hopefully @mrblaine can help out with that.
 
Excuses my ignorance but why do you feel that thimbles don't add value? Or is it the particular brand?
Winching and vehicle recovery are inherently dangerous. Anytime one is involved in an inherently dangerous activity, there are rules you should live be to reduce the risks to more tolerable levels.
#1- use the least number of connections possible to reduce points of failure.
#2- take care of your equipment with acute attention to detail to prevent possible failure and it will in return take care of you and your vehicle.
#3- winches are self recovery devices. As soon as you use them in another capacity, you introduce an entire higher level of risk and possible failure.

Study those three rules and live by them.
If you want to use a snatch block with that "thimble" and hook back to your bumper, how do you do it? (thimble is in quotes because it isn't a thimble, it is a hookless hook and attached to the rope via some method other than a thimble. In fact, a thimble is used to attach it to the rope with a pin just like a normal hook)

The eye won't fit over a recovery hook so you have to add another connection. Just to do a snatch to vehicle 3 connections, with a thimble, you have 1. If you want to do a pull on another vehicle that has shackle tabs, you get this-
1547050407485.png

If you look at that and think any of that is a good idea, there's some learning that needs to happen.
 
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How would you do this same attachment with a true safety thimble?

I'm not doubting, I'm actually genuinely curious.
First start with eliminating the F55 thing. Keep looking for ways to eliminate connections.

With a Safety Thimble, I see see at least two things that don't need to be there.
 
First start with eliminating the F55 thing. Keep looking for ways to eliminate connections.

With a Safety Thimble, I see see at least two things that don't need to be there.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there was a safety thimble there, could you just use a soft shackle in place of the two shackles in that photo (I don't want to use D-ring, since I know that's not the correct term)?
 
#3- winches are self recovery devices. As soon as you use them in another capacity, you introduce an entire higher level of risk and possible failure.

I agree that we add in more risk connecting to another vehicle, however, I think that risk needs to be balanced with the other possible recovery methods. Around here trails change often based on weather conditions and a lot of times you need to be pulled out the way you went in rather than push on through a trail (either because the trail is impassable or because you ended up sliding into a position with a tree directly in front of you). A winch from another Jeep can allow for a much more controlled recovery than connecting a strap and pulling.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there was a safety thimble there, could you just use a soft shackle in place of the two shackles in that photo (I don't want to use D-ring, since I know that's not the correct term)?
Here are a couple ways to reduce connections and also reduce the weight of the thing hitting you in the face.
4c2c4a4ab62833ec1fea73fe7b98bc51.jpg

20190109_094138.jpg
 
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Here are a couple ways to reduce connections and also reduce the weight of the thing hitting you in the face.View attachment 71487View attachment 71488

Okay, so this is exactly like what I was thinking.

But since I've never actually used this Factor 55 Pro Link, what I am gathering is that the eyelet on it is too small to fit a typical shackle through it?

Like I said, I got it for free and have yet to test it out, hence the confusion.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there was a safety thimble there, could you just use a soft shackle in place of the two shackles in that photo (I don't want to use D-ring, since I know that's not the correct term)?
The Factor 55 isn't a THimble. A Thimble on rope is what keep the eye shape and keep from getting pinched. The Factor 55 stuff keeps the factory rope thimble in the rope pic above.

The Safety Thimble replaces that and is an actual Thimble, plus you can stick the shackle eye through the Safety Thimble, meaning 2 connections instead of 4. All the Factor 55 is above is a fancy rope stop for your fairlead.
 
Well Blaine is right (obviously). I went out to the garage and tried to put the Factor55 Pro Link around the hook on the Savvy bumper and it won’t fit.

So this is basically a useless POS. Good thing I got it for free.

Guess I need to hurry up and get a real safety thimble.
 
If the Factor55 attaches to a thimble the very same way a shackle does, then why is it there in the first place?

Another nuance to the poor design of the F55 is that when it is sucked up to the aluminum hawse, the real thimble it is attached to will gouge the hawse and tear up the synthetic rope.
 
Well Blaine is right (obviously). I went out to the garage and tried to put the Factor55 Pro Link around the hook on the Savvy bumper and it won’t fit.

...

Are there any hooks suitable for vehicle recovery that the F55 will fit onto without an extra shackle?
 
Are there any hooks suitable for vehicle recovery that the F55 will fit onto without an extra shackle?

Good question, I’m not entirely sure. The opening on the F55 isn’t very large, so it would have to be a very small hook.
 
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How would you do this same attachment with a true safety thimble?

I'm not doubting, I'm actually genuinely curious.

I would pull the "receiver to shackle adapter thing" out and put a soft shackle through the safety thimble and around the pin in the receiver. What I've found is that almost every winching scenario I've been in can be rigged up with just a soft shackle or a soft shackle and a tree saver (keep in mind that I'm not wheeling super hard like Blaine). I'm in the process of ditching all the heavy warn snatch blocks and shackles I have in favor of aluminum snatch blocks and soft shackles.

Tons of weight when winching scares me. I was out wheeling on a forest service road in Wyoming once and came across and guy in a Chevy Silverado stuck up to the bed in mud. My group offered to help but he was set on winching himself out. Once he started pulling out chains, snatch blocks, and giant d-rings, I backed my Jeep up 200 feet and sat on the hood to watch the show. He managed to bang it off the rev limiter while winching to get out, but I don't want to know what would happen if his rigging let go...
 
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I would pull the "receiver to shackle adapter thing" out and put a soft shackle through the safety thimble and around the pin in the receiver.

...

A while back I was helping a couple whose truck had slid sideways off the icy road in a cold lonely part of Colorado. The only decent place for me to attach was the hitch receiver. I did the same, where I put a hitch pin through a strap. Given the scenario, the pull required a side load on the receiver which made me concerned about damaging the strap on the hard edges of the receiver. For lack of anything better, after attaching the strap, I tightly packed the gap between the strap and receiver with a couple leather gloves I had to soften the edges I needed to pull against.

I don't know if the gloves did any good under those loads, but the strap was no worse for wear and we got the truck back on the road.

Side loads add a lot of potentially dangerous complexity and need to be considered.
 
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I agree that we add in more risk connecting to another vehicle, however, I think that risk needs to be balanced with the other possible recovery methods. Around here trails change often based on weather conditions and a lot of times you need to be pulled out the way you went in rather than push on through a trail (either because the trail is impassable or because you ended up sliding into a position with a tree directly in front of you). A winch from another Jeep can allow for a much more controlled recovery than connecting a strap and pulling.
Which changes what I said in what way?