OK to use soft shacke on steel cable hook?

[gbirk]

I recently installed my 1st winch and ordered my 1st soft shackle. The winch (Warn Zeon10) has a steel cable and a pretty standard looking steel hook. Is it OK to use a soft shackle directly on this hook?

 

[jodomcfrodo]

Yup, you shouldn't cut the soft shackle on the hook. You might want to consider reducing the amount of attachments you have in the future by getting rid of the hook, but it will definitely work with a soft shackle.

 

[gbirk]

Yup, you shouldn't cut the soft shackle on the hook. You might want to consider reducing the amount of attachments you have in the future by getting rid of the hook, but it will definitely work with a soft shackle.

Do you recommend removing the hook and just joining at the loop or replacing the hook with something else softer?

I found the winch on Craigslist new-in-box for $600 which seemed like a great deal, but it had the steel cable. Once the cable needs replacing or I am out of higher priority stuff on the Jeep I will probably replace the cable with synthetic and a thimble, but that may be a year or two away.

 

[jodomcfrodo]

Do you recommend removing the hook and just joining at the loop or replacing the hook with something else softer?

I found the winch on Craigslist new-in-box for $600 which seemed like a great deal, but it had the steel cable. Once the cable needs replacing or I am out of higher priority stuff on the Jeep I will probably replace the cable with synthetic and a thimble, but that may be a year or two away.

Getting some TRE synthetic with a safety thimble is the ultimate solution, but if you can get a soft shackle through the thimble you already have, it might be better to run it that way. The hook is really no different than a standard metal shackle in reality. You could hook a shackle through the the thimble and it would be exactly the same as the hook without the risk of something sliding off somehow.

The setup you are running now is fine. You could get rid of a single connection by ditching the hook, but I've ran that exact setup before with no problems.

 

[gbirk]

Getting some TRE synthetic with a safety thimble is the ultimate solution, but if you can get a soft shackle through the thimble you already have, it might be better to run it that way. The hook is really no different than a standard metal shackle in reality. You could hook a shackle through the the thimble and it would be exactly the same as the hook without the risk of something sliding off somehow.

The setup you are running now is fine. You could get rid of a single connection by ditching the hook, but I've ran that exact setup before with no problems.

Thanks so much. That's great info.