Did I tension my synthetic winch rope correctly?

[diesel_dave]

Hey all, had a Warn Zeon 10S installed a few weeks back. The installers just kinda haphazardly wound the rope up on the drum so I knew I needed to unspool it all and tension it properly before I need to actually use it. I've never seen anyone do it in person so I watched a few videos including the Warn one that was clearly scripted by their legal team.

I ended up unspooling all of the rope and then wound on 10 wraps using only body weight tension. For the rest of the rope, I had my wife sit in the jeep with it in neutral and the parking brake "lightly applied" while I winched the jeep up my driveway. Well, apparently only a few clicks of the parking brake on a JL is enough to completely lock up the rear wheels. Didn't find out until the very end that I was dragging my locked up rear tires the entire time (ughhh!).

I think I got the rope tensioned properly, but I guess I don't really know what it should or should not look like. I isn't visibly sinking down into the lower layers which is all I really picked up from the videos of what it shouldn't be doing. Now that I know I was dragging the rear axle, is it possible to tension the rope too tightly? Also, when I was finished, I noticed some kind of weird buildup on the fairlead. Any idea what that's about?

The basic setup:

Embarrassing!

Poor tires (doh!):

Best picture I could get down in there:

What is this gunk that wasn't there before I started?

Thanks for the help!

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[1996cc]

You did a great job. That’s just coating from the rope, won’t hurt anything. No such thing as too tight. Think about the tension when its fully buried.

 

[1996cc]

Now for a burnout to even the tread wear!

 

[diesel_dave]

You did a great job. That’s just coating from the rope, won’t hurt anything. No such thing as too tight. Think about the tension when its fully buried.

Thanks! I really wasn't sure. Everything I watched and read really emphasized how important it was to do this correctly, but did not really explain the parameters that needed to be met.

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