Recovery Kit - What’s recommended?

[Watchtower02]

I currently have a ARB snatch strap but am looking to expand my recovery gear as I am adding a winch to my JLU. What do you recommend? What brand?

Thank you!!

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[Abend]

Interested to see what others say, but here's the recovery gear I keep in my jeep all the time:

30' tow strap
Tree saver strap
4 bow shackles
Snatch block
Folding shovel

When I'm on the trail, I also carry my tool kit which includes all the tools I need (along with printed instructions to aid my aging memory) to splice synthetic winch line in case it gets damaged.

 

[dustdriver]

I currently have a ARB snatch strap but am looking to expand my recovery gear as I am adding a winch to my JLU. What do you recommend? What brand?

Thank you!!

It will come down to how much $$$ you want to spend.
IMO, "economize elsewhere", because so much can be riding on it. Also remember that if you use your recovery gear one time it pays for itself. Buy the best quality you can. I like ARB and Factor55, but there are a lot of options worth looking into.

My suggestions:

Recovery strap or dynamic recovery rope (general rule to remember: "nylon stretches, polyester doesn't"). Be careful about overkill here, because a recovery strap/rope that is too heavy duty won't be able to do it's job (kinetic energy stretching) with lighter vehicles. Do your research.

Anchor strap (i.e., "tree saver"). Pay the extra $ for the best quality you can. Pay the extra $ for the longest version they offer. This strap must not break or stretch, so overkill is good. (Also, get at least two if you can. I just winched a Ram 2500 off the side of a mountain a couple days ago and was glad I had not one but three anchor straps. They come in handy for creating tow points in places like receiver hitches, etc.)

Synthetic winch line and winch line extension
Lots of threads out there about synthetic vs. steel, both have their valid points, but I'm on the synthetic side of the fence for a lot of reasons (safer, easier to rig with, floats, easy field repairs).
Get a 100 ft. extension line. Rigging a winching setup often consumes a lot more line than you think.

Snatch blocks/Pulleys
Again, overkill is probably a good thing here. Buy the highest quality you can. For every one you have, buy an equally-rated shackle or soft shackle.

Recovery Boards
I am in the process of shopping for some recovery boards as we speak, after an incident over the weekend convinced me that they would have probably made a huge difference. There have been many such incidents over the years, and I don't know why it took me this long to realize their value. (Still shopping, but I like the ActionTrax and am leaning that direction...)

Hi-Lift Jack
Yep. I rarely use it, but when I do, almost nothing else will work in that situation. Got badly stuck one time and the only thing that finally got me out were TWO Hi-Lift jacks, a frying pan, and a folding metal chair. Long story...

Good luck!

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