On getting a heavy object to go uphill without an anchor point at the  
top of the hill:

Lever the heavy object (e.g. a safe) onto a couple of long planks  
extending to the top of the hill (a.k.a. inside of the truck). Anchor  
the winch at the far end of the planks; commence pulling.  One can  
make sure the safe doesn't slide off the planks by building a saddle  
around the safe, after it's on the planks, with some two-by-fours and  
lag screws (oldtools content: use a brace & bit to bore the pilot  
holes and drive the screws ...).

On the breakage of come-alongs:

"Modern" ones have a built-in safety mechanism: The main lever simply  
bends when you've overdone it.  Of course, that usually leaves the  
load stranded, so to speak. Cheap bottle jacks are similar: that  
flimsy little telescopic tubular handle collapses when one pushes too  
hard. The designers may even have anticipated the substitution of a  
stronger handle such as a tire iron: then the pump's frame collapses.

On Christopher's A-frame and its over-center transport mechanism:

I once had a consulting job involving what was claimed to be the  
breakage of a chain binder (classic over-center mechanism). The  
opposing side calculated the force on the binder when it was "this  
close" to the over-center position and got sufficient force to break  
the thing.  [In actuality, they measured the force to break the binder  
and then worked backwards ...] Of course, starting from zero load  
(i.e., loose chain) one can't get there from here without the help of  
a gorilla and a ten foot long cheater pipe, which I proved with the  
use of two tensile testing machines working in tandem ... and also by  
doing the math. That was fun, and I didn't even have to use the  
defendant manufacturer's chain binder ... a different one that I got  
at the local hardware store. Plaintiff's expert agreed with me ...  
that was even more fun.

George Langford, who somehow managed to make some chuck springs  
yesterday in his unheated shed in SE PA by guessing the right mandrel  
size, wire size, and number of turns, all on the first try.