- How to replace winch cable with synthetic rope, short version: change the fairlead, change the end hardware, follow your winch manual at the drum.
- Murphy's doesn't sell winch line on its own. No spool, no by-the-foot. The store sells the parts around the rope.
- Look at your fairlead before you buy anything. Scored by years of steel? Change it. Smooth? Keep it and keep your money.
- Soft shackles first, hard shackles second, thimbles last. That's the store's own ranking for what belongs on the eye.
- Rick ran a jacketed line on his wrecker and it bound up mid-recovery. On camera he says he should have switched long ago.
- Rather skip the job? The Gladiator V2 at $999.99 turns up on synthetic with an aluminium fairlead already fitted.
1. What Murphy's Stocks for This, and What It Doesn't
Start with the bit a store doesn't usually lead with. Murphy's doesn't sell winch line on its own. Not by the foot, not on a spool, not as a SKU you can add to a cart.
So if you came here for how to replace winch cable with synthetic rope, the honest version is this: Murphy's sells the parts that live around the rope, and the rope itself either comes from somewhere else or arrives already spooled onto a new winch.
What is in the store for this job:
- The fairlead. Groove Fairlead [Hawse], the shape synthetic wants, in five fitments.
- The hardware on the end. Double Loop soft shackles, so the eye of the new line lands on rope and not steel.
- The ring for the awkward pulls. Offset Winch Snatch Ring, synthetic-only by design.
- The whole winch, if you want it done for you. The Warrior units ship on synthetic already.
One more thing, because it comes up on the fairlead page itself. That page carries Yankum's own FAQ, and Yankum says there that they can supply a synthetic winch line if you need one.[1] Yankum is the rope partner behind most of Murphy's recovery gear. Their line isn't a Murphy's product, and this article won't pretend otherwise.
2. What Else Has to Change When You Switch
Three things on the truck get a vote. Only one of them is the rope.
The fairlead. This is the big one. Steel cable cuts its own channel into whatever guides it, and that channel becomes a file. Go out and run your thumb around the mouth of the one you have. Smooth, no grooves, no sharp lip? Synthetic will run on it. Scored or pitted? Change it, because the rope costs more than the block.
The hawse the store carries was drawn for exactly this. It's "designed specifically to protect synthetic winch line," and it "fully shields your line from direct contact with trees, rocks, or the bumper face without needing a hook or attachment to do it."[1]
The brake. Plenty of winches put the brake inside the drum. That's fine for steel, which doesn't care about heat. Synthetic does care. This is why the winch Murphy's stocks makes a point of it: the Gladiator's "External Brake Design keeps the drum cool to protect your rope," alongside a thermal overload system for long heavy pulls.[2] Check where your brake lives before you spool synthetic onto a drum that gets hot.
The end hardware. A steel thimble swaged into a steel cable is normal. On synthetic, the store ranks the options the other way round, and gives a reason: soft shackles "provide a larger radius at the eye and won't collapse under extreme loads the way a thimble can."[1] A wider radius spreads the load instead of pinching it.
3. The End You Can See, and the End You Can't
A winch line has two ends and they aren't the same problem.
The drum end is the one you can't see once the job is done, and it's the one part of this swap nobody on the internet can tell you. How the line terminates at your drum is your winch manufacturer's business: the slot, the set screw, the torque on it. Open the manual, follow it exactly, and don't improvise. Get that wrong and the first hard pull finds out for you.
The working end is the one you handle every time, and that one is standard across jobs. If the swap means re-doing the eye, it's a smaller job than people expect. The store's answer, verbatim: "Re-tying a Brummell splice at the end of your winch line takes a few minutes and doesn't require pulling your entire line off the drum."[1]
Then spool it back on properly. BFGoodrich's winching guide gives the two rules you need here. Watch it as it comes in and "make sure the cable is winding evenly on the drum," and leave yourself margin at the anchor, because you want "at least 4 to 5 wraps of winch line to remain on the drum."[3] Piled-up line binds. Ask Rick.
4. Why Rick Wishes He'd Switched Sooner
The Cybertruck episode is a good one. Driver loses his brakes on a descent, picks an embankment over a 300-foot drop, and the thing ends up on its roof, rocking on the spot. Rick's line at the top: "When you get a Cybertruck on its roof, it turns into a big teeter-totter."
The rollover itself goes to plan. Boom out over the top, one cable on the wheels, one on the body, lay it back down. Then his own winch line jams in the sheave head because of the protective jacket on it, and the job stops dead while he sorts it out.
"Honestly, I should have put Yankum winch line on here a long time ago. We use Yankum for our winch lines, folks."— Cyber Truck Turns Into A Teeter Totter After Loosing All Its Brakes!
That's a man with a rolled vehicle in front of him and his own winch out of action, saying out loud that he knew about this and didn't get to it. Sound familiar?
And the time it costs isn't five minutes.
"I got to get rigged back up and get my boom back out. I had to bring my boom in cuz I thought if I brought my boom in that the weight of the car would pull it out of the sheave head and it wouldn't."— Cyber Truck Turns Into A Teeter Totter After Loosing All Its Brakes!
Two notes so nobody reads more into this than is there. Rick runs a heavy wrecker with a boom and a sheave head, not a bumper winch and a fairlead, so this isn't a story about your front bumper. And the Yankum line he names isn't something Murphy's sells. It's the brand he runs.
The transferable part is the timing. He didn't decide to change his line on a quiet afternoon with the truck in the shop. He decided it while a vehicle sat upside down and one of his winches was busy pulling the other one free.
5. The Parts List, and What It Costs
Prices from the store, the day this was written.
| Part | From Murphy's? | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Synthetic winch line | No, not sold separately | — |
| Hawse fairlead | Yes, five fitments | $137.99–$229.99 |
| Fairlead mounting hardware | Sold separately, not included | — |
| Soft shackle for the eye | Yes | $78.99–$145.99 |
| Winch ring for redirects | Yes, synthetic only | $169.99 |
| Whole winch, on synthetic | Yes | $999.99 |
Order the fairlead and its stainless hardware kit together. The page says it plainly, and people still miss it: "Hardware is NOT included."[1]
Built for synthetic line and shaped to keep it off trees, rocks and the bumper face without a hook. Five fitments from ATV to full-size, 10-inch bolt spacing on the full-size models. Hardware sold separately. Made by Yankum Ropes.
6. Or Buy It Already Done
Not every swap is worth doing. If the winch on the front is old, slow and tired, you can spend a few hundred dollars making an old winch nicer, or put it toward one that shows up right.
The Gladiator V2 F-Type arrives on synthetic rope with a full-length abrasion guard, a 7075 aviation-grade aluminium fairlead, a 16,000 lb hook, a wired and wireless remote good from 50 feet, thermal overload protection, IP68 waterproofing and a seven-year warranty.[2] No fairlead decision, no splice, no drum question.
Which way you go depends on the winch you already own. That's your call, not ours.
The shape synthetic wants. Five fitments. Measure your bolt spacing before you order.
Larger radius at the eye, no collapse under extreme load. 20 inches closed, 40 open, 36-inch chafe sleeve.
Redirect or double a pull. Synthetic HMPE only, up to 7/16 inch, bumper winches 12,000 lbs or less.
Turns up on synthetic with an aluminium fairlead, a 16,000 lb hook and an external brake that keeps the drum cool.
A new line isn't a tested line. Treat the first few pulls as checks, not as business as usual.
- Follow the winch manual at the drum. Termination and torque are the manufacturer's numbers, not a guess from a forum.
- Keep 4 to 5 wraps on the drum. "Any fewer, and you risk losing grip or spooling the line completely off, leaving you stuck without recovery."[3]
- Gloves on before you pull line out.[3] Synthetic is safer than steel to handle. It isn't friendly.
- Dampener over the line, every time. "Place a line dampener over the winch cable to absorb energy if the line snaps."[3]
- Stand back further than the line is long.[3] That's the rule, and it's a long way further than most people stand.
- Land on a rated point. "DO NOT attach a strap to a tow ball or bumper hitch. These are not rated for recovery and can break off under load."[3]
- Watch it spool in evenly. A line piling on one end of the drum binds, and a bound winch mid-recovery is exactly what cost Rick his afternoon.
Sources
- Groove Fairlead [Hawse] product page — description, hardware note, splice FAQ and soft-shackle guidance. Fetched 2026-09-19. murphysdiesel.com/products/groove-fairlead-hawse
- Gladiator V2 F-Type 10,000lb winch product page — fairlead, hook, rope, remote, external brake and warranty. Fetched 2026-09-19. murphysdiesel.com/products/gladiator-v2-f-type-10-000lb-12v-electric-winch-synthetic-rope
- BFGoodrich Tires, "Recovery Techniques" (4x4 Driving Guide). Quotes confirmed verbatim, fetched 2026-09-19. bfgoodrichtires.com/auto/learn/4x4-driving-guide/recovery-techniques
Do It on a Quiet Afternoon, Not on a Job
Everybody who has run steel for years knows they will switch eventually. The ones who do it in the driveway get to take their time over the fairlead, the eye and the first test pull. The ones who put it off end up doing the maths on their knees with somebody's truck upside down in front of them. Start with the fairlead. It's the part that decides how long the new rope lives.