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Chinese winch repair

Find a hardened dowel pin from McMaster-Carr or similar source (or possibly a Toyota or other Jap pressure-plate dowel, looks about the right size) that will be smaller than that slot in the sliding collar. Drill a hole centered on the broken pin boss that fits the chosen pin tight. Apply sleeve retainer or high-tensile epoxy.

I think that would be a repair that would be stronger than anything from China made of pot-metal coated with chrome. I’ve had a couple of friends that have failed that handle when crud or rust binds the sliding collar.
Thats a good option, but I was referring to the pin on the bottom that interfaces with the clutch. I have no idea what it looks like unfucked, but I could probably reverse engineering it
 
Thats a good option, but I was referring to the pin on the bottom that interfaces with the clutch. I have no idea what it looks like unfucked, but I could probably reverse engineering it
The pin that is supposed to be cast into that handle that looks like it’s broken off leaving the circular witness mark? That’s what I was talking about drilling. Unless I’m misunderstanding the problem entirely.
 
The pin that is supposed to be cast into that handle that looks like it’s broken off leaving the circular witness mark? That’s what I was talking about drilling. Unless I’m misunderstanding the problem entirely.
Fuckin hell, I misread. I took sliding collar as the boss sticking out of the top. Yeah imm rummage at work and come up with something
 
Fuckin hell, I misread. I took sliding collar as the boss sticking out of the top. Yeah imm rummage at work and come up with something
:laughing: No worries! I’ve always said 9/10 of solving problems with others is getting on the same page, especially when it comes to equipment. There’s many regional variations in what things are called, and that doesn’t even account for people who are mechanical but self-taught and never even learned the “proper” terminology (which depending on the equipment/field I have the same disadvantage). We all end up borrowing words to describe things that don’t have a “proper name” from things we know. I know it’s made things more difficult in that respect post-COVID at work when trying to solve issues with equipment remotely. It’s much easier to point at the thing and say “make something fit THAT thing”!:laughing:
 
:laughing: No worries! I’ve always said 9/10 of solving problems with others is getting on the same page, especially when it comes to equipment. There’s many regional variations in what things are called, and that doesn’t even account for people who are mechanical but self-taught and never even learned the “proper” terminology (which depending on the equipment/field I have the same disadvantage). We all end up borrowing words to describe things that don’t have a “proper name” from things we know. I know it’s made things more difficult in that respect post-COVID at work when trying to solve issues with equipment remotely. It’s much easier to point at the thing and say “make something fit THAT thing”!:laughing:
For sure, communication is always a challenge when working on stuff. We're rebuilding a hydro dam at work and it was originally built in Quebec so the franglish translation is rough.
 
:laughing: No worries! I’ve always said 9/10 of solving problems with others is getting on the same page, especially when it comes to equipment. There’s many regional variations in what things are called, and that doesn’t even account for people who are mechanical but self-taught and never even learned the “proper” terminology (which depending on the equipment/field I have the same disadvantage). We all end up borrowing words to describe things that don’t have a “proper name” from things we know. I know it’s made things more difficult in that respect post-COVID at work when trying to solve issues with equipment remotely. It’s much easier to point at the thing and say “make something fit THAT thing”!:laughing:
Went from a "just fix it" to full R&R job. Tore it down to grease the gears thoroughly. Should the sliding collar come out? Mine doesn't want to move, but I haven't tried too hard yet
 
Went from a "just fix it" to full R&R job. Tore it down to grease the gears thoroughly. Should the sliding collar come out? Mine doesn't want to move, but I haven't tried too hard yet
If I remember correctly there may be an external Allen screw or a snap ring internally that holds the sliding collar from going too far. There’s one or two of these “gotchas” in the winches I’ve torn apart. It may also just be froze with dirt or rust. If it won’t budge at all I’d say the latter.
 
If I remember correctly there may be an external Allen screw or a snap ring internally that holds the sliding collar from going too far. There’s one or two of these “gotchas” in the winches I’ve torn apart. It may also just be froze with dirt or rust. If it won’t budge at all I’d say the latter.
Yeah it's not moving at all, probably why the pin broke, or it's the broken chunk holding it up. Hmm
 
Yeah it's not moving at all, probably why the pin broke, or it's the broken chunk holding it up. Hmm
If you think it’s dirt or sand, soak it in water with some dish soap or laundry soap. I’ve seen penetrating oil gum it up worse when using it on dirt. Perhaps take a propane or mapp gas torch and hear the housing before dunking it in soapy water.
 
If you think it’s dirt or sand, soak it in water with some dish soap or laundry soap. I’ve seen penetrating oil gum it up worse when using it on dirt. Perhaps take a propane or mapp gas torch and hear the housing before dunking it in soapy water.
I've got it sitting in some diesel fuel soaking. I like the soapy water idea
 
Well, got it out. Broken chunk of pin was caught and scored the inside. Going to try to polish it out and see what happens. I'm into it for $100
 
I forgot about this thread.

I tried ordering the fancier winches from Alibaba and the manufactures would just reply with quotes for the same old shitty cheap ones. Never got one of them to actually price what I was asking for.


But after a wheeling trip to Windrock last weekend, I did make some observations. We pull A LOT of cable. 11 rigs, probably pulled at least 100 times over two days with all of us. I had my old beater with an old weathered Warn 9500 something on the front and an ancient 6k or 8k on the rear. We had several Smitty X2O's and XRC's (I have an X2O on my other rig), a couple of the new Badlands and a couple of the cheapest noname amazon ones. And then one of my buddies on the second day had his ridiculous rig with an 8274 in the front and a warn 10k in the rear.

The warns outperformed the imports hands down. Even my old clapped out warn was better. The really cheap ($200) amazon specially was so painfully slow and noise that we probably could have set up chain and a come-a-long faster.


I think my new opinion is - I'll buy one of the imports for a seldom used rig, trailer or some place where I won't likely be using it much, but for my trailer rigs I think I'd rather buy an old used warn, throw some new rope on it and run it.
 
I forgot about this thread.

I tried ordering the fancier winches from Alibaba and the manufactures would just reply with quotes for the same old shitty cheap ones. Never got one of them to actually price what I was asking for.


But after a wheeling trip to Windrock last weekend, I did make some observations. We pull A LOT of cable. 11 rigs, probably pulled at least 100 times over two days with all of us. I had my old beater with an old weathered Warn 9500 something on the front and an ancient 6k or 8k on the rear. We had several Smitty X2O's and XRC's (I have an X2O on my other rig), a couple of the new Badlands and a couple of the cheapest noname amazon ones. And then one of my buddies on the second day had his ridiculous rig with an 8274 in the front and a warn 10k in the rear.

The warns outperformed the imports hands down. Even my old clapped out warn was better. The really cheap ($200) amazon specially was so painfully slow and noise that we probably could have set up chain and a come-a-long faster.


I think my new opinion is - I'll buy one of the imports for a seldom used rig, trailer or some place where I won't likely be using it much, but for my trailer rigs I think I'd rather buy an old used warn, throw some new rope on it and run it.
I think this take is absolutely correct. I don’t think the top line winches are overpriced. I think you get exactly what you pay for: reliability and peace of mind it’s going to work when you want it to.

However, I also stand by what I said in one of my initial posts: if you strip one down when it’s brand new, add better grease, add rust prevention to bare metal internals, relieve axial tension from motor bearings, and seal them better than factory, you could end up with a winch that performs similarly to the mid-grade winches or the cheapest import top line brands’ offerings for the price of your time.

They are still slow AF compared to a top line winch though :laughing:

Maybe when the kids are out of the house I’ll get me a warn, or find one of the hood warns used and fix it for the price of a HF APEX
 
I think you'd have far better results just pulling the gear box off every year or two and cleaning out the old shit and regreasing. Most of them have multiple layers of planetaries and you're not likely going to realy displace the old grease on the gears themselves. I light coat of good, quality grease in the right spots is better than a gear box full of grease where 98% of it isn't doing anything.


If it's full of grease there's no space for water to get in. :idea:
 
Any luck on finding the springs for the crap brake setup in the right side of the spool. I have an old rough country that ate up 1 of the two springs. It’s always been noisy( probably because it was messed up from the get go) recently the spring bound up and made the winch bypass the gearbox and go full send. I tore it down and removed said spring. It works but under any load the spool out is very noisy and aggressive. Here’s the link for the “turbo winch video”

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