Fab Rats and Yankum Ropes put the Fairlead to the test

Paul from Fab Rats and Alan with Yankum Ropes use the new Groove Fairlead after Alan breaks the rear driveline on his Landcruiser.  This new Hawse fairlead is the only one of its kind and is the best at protecting your synthetic winchline. The day started out to just be a relaxing ride with friends on the trail called Metal Masher in Moab, a fun time to go wheeling and enjoy some fun company. 

The first big obstacle on Metal Masher is a very steep wall, one of the disadvantages of our Toyota Landcruiser is its approach angle. In order to get the front tires on the rocks you have to grind the front bumper up the rocks. We captured this moment as an excellent example of how the fairlead protects the winch-line from abrasion and pinching on rocks.  Several years earlier Alan had broken his roller fairlead on the very same obstacle.  

Sure enough the Groove Fairlead had worked exactly as planned but the adventure hadn't even begun until the very next moment...  BANG! The rear driveline snapped in the double cardon u-joint just behind the center diff.  So we had a choice, to either suffer the consequences of our hobby, or turn this into a good youtube video.  

Alan turned to Paul and said, "welp, can we squeeze a video out of this??" and with a big grin he said "ABSOLUTELY!" The wind was terrible and the mood was upbeat given the circumstances.  We immediately went to work and removed the driveline from the landcruiser and locked the center diff so the front wheels would at least provide some assistance.  

The rest of the details are captured in the video, with an emphasis in explaining the use of this new style hawse fairlead. We this video definitely leans into being a commercial, but the event of breaking a driveline was an opportunity we couldn't let slip by.