Dutton-Lainson Hand Winch - Single Speed - Freewheel - 20' Strap - 1,500 lbs

Video Transcript for Dutton-Lainson Hand Winch

Hi everyone, Aidan here with etrailer. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at this Dutton-Lainson Hand Winch. This is going to come with a 20 foot strap and have a 1,500 pound capacity, and be a great replacement for a winch on your boat trailer. Let's check it out. With this, it's gonna operate just like any other winch would on a boat trailer. You've got the main arm with the swiveling handle to operate it, and then we've got our release right here to change it into the free spool mode where we can loosen it up, or flip that lever to start tightening it up and drawing that strap in.

(winch cranking) Now, compared to a lot of the other winches that I've worked with, one thing I will point out is how smooth the handle is here. This material is really nice and soft, you get a very good grip on it, it's more than large enough for my hand to fit around comfortably, and we get a good turning action on it, very smooth and easy to use. The strap is a nice heavy-duty nylon material, which feels very tough and resistant to tears, and like I said before, it does have a 1,500 pound capacity. Now, that's the rating that Dutton-Lainson gives this if your boat trailer has wooden bunks and no additional supports. If you have something like free turning rollers, you can get a little bit of extra bolt pull out of this, but just a sort of peace of mind, just go by that lowest rated component, 1,500 pounds, and if your trailer does have extra supports like those free turning rollers, then know that you can support a little bit more weight with it.

All the metal pieces on here from the gears inside to the hook at the end of the strap have this zinc TUFFPLATE finish, which is gonna help it be very corrosion resistant, especially knowing that this is going to be around water and getting wet, you don't want it to corrode over time, so this finish is going to help it resist that. You also have the plastic housing over the gears. Now, some of them are still exposed, obviously, and you can move this around a little bit, things can get in there, but it is going to help keep it a little bit more covered up from dirt and debris and keep all of those moving parts a little bit more protected than if they we're just exposed to the elements. As far as mounting goes, you're going to have three slotted holes for your main mounting points. It does not come with its own hardware, so you will need to provide that yourself, but aside from that, the install process is very straightforward, so let's check out how we did it.

Now, we already have the old winch from our boat trailer removed, so we just need to drop the new one in place. If you're replacing an old one, that's gonna look a little bit different for everyone, depending on your setup, but just get that old one off, and the new one is going to have three bolt holes that are all slotted, so it should hopefully match up to maybe some spots that we have on our trailer already from an old winch. Luckily for us, these do line up, and we can just drop in our hardware. Now, the hardware doesn't come with it, so you really need to pick up your own. For our application today, we've got three bolts with flat washers, lock washers, and nuts on the other side.

I'm just gonna get these loosely started by now, or for now, in all three of those locations. Once this first one's in, the winch will hold itself in place, and I can come back through and tighten all of that up. (hand drill buzzing) (hand drill buzzing) We can then secure our handle in place by removing the supplied nut that comes just pre-attached loosely right there, line up the slotted hole, and then reattach that nut and secure it down with a 19 millimeter socket. (hand drill buzzing) Then, all we have to do is get this all hooked up. (winch cranking) And that's really all there is to it. Overall, it's a very simple install process with the slotted holes, it's easy to line up with stuff you already have, so hopefully, you're not having to drill new holes on your trailer. The one thing you need to remember though is just to pick up some hardware that's gonna be appropriate for the whole setup, but aside from that, it's got everything you need to get up and running and get you a new winch on your trailer. Thanks for watching.