Rebuilding a 8274. It's seen better days.

[climber8483]

I've had this winch for about 6 years now. I bought it from a guy on Craigslist for $250, it was listed as a 8000lb Jeep winch. It ran when I got it so I never bothered to pull it apart (my mistake). I did notice that it seemed to take a huge drain on my battery and never seemed quite as fast as others, so I pulled the side plate and couldn't find the bushing so I put a ton of grease there and called it good for the time.

Well fast forward 6 years and I'm finally catching up on cruiser projects.

So here are some pics along with a few questions. As you can see this thing has definitely seen better days.

The first pic is why my friends call the cruiser a "Jeep".

That oil doesn't look so good...

I forgot to take a picture of it, but the drum bushing that goes into the gear housing is sticking out about .2 inches instead of being pressed in .2 inches.


Next will be what really needs work.

 

[climber8483]

So the part that needs a lot of work

Well I pulled the motor and now I know why it's been so sluggish and draws the battery down so low every time I use it, which isn't frequent due to my unhappiness with its performance.

Yep, that's mildew growing inside the winch housing. There is a bit of rust on all the bare metal surfaces and one of the brushes was frozen and not even touching the shaft.

How can I clean the windings without damaging them? I used some lectra-clean on them and it didn't seem to do anything.

In does it really matter? I'm not sure if this would affect the magnetic field on it.

I'm soaking all the big screw so I can try and and pull the fields out to clean them and clean all the rust off the steel plates.

The ratchet gear on the brake has a lot of side to side play. I'm guessing one of the friction plates is missing. I'll have to wait until tomorrow when I can grab a puller as it is stuck on to verify though.

 

[Pin_Head]

There is nothing particularly bad or unusual about the condition of your winch. Just shine up the comutator, clean and lube the brushes, bearings and bushings and put it back together. Resist the temptation to over clean things that don't matter like the varnish on the armature that you are pointing to and the surface rust.

 

[climber8483]

What should I use for lube?

 

[Cruiserdrew]

What should I use for lube?

Warn says to use non-detergent 30Weight, but I just used 80w-90 gear oil and it's been fine.

 

[climber8483]

Sorry I should have quoted. Pinhead said to lube the brushes bearings and bushing. I don't think I should be using 30wt or gear oil in the motor housing.

 

[1911]

Warn says to use non-detergent 30Weight, but I just used 80w-90 gear oil and it's been fine.

I put 75W-90 synthetic gear lube in mine and it is muy bueno.