First Time for Everything - Warn Winch Rebuild

[wjw]

Well as Rick is really busy at the mo' I thought I'll have a go at putting my winch back together. I cleaned the whole thing up in the parts washer and soaked the gears in petrol for a few days to get rid of the huge grease buildup. I then had the main bits powder coated.

Having been googling on how to put it back together I ended up emailing warn in the US yesterday, they sent me the service manual and suggested I start by soaking the roller bearings and planetary gears in ATF oil for a few days to get rid of any petrol/diesel/grease residue from the clean up. Turns out the only grease you should use is Moly or Lithium based. And even that depends on the winch model, some must have grease, some oil.

So I have everything laid out and soaking ready to start tomorrow night:

Dismantled Winch

If wife allows there will be another update tomorrow.

[NJV6]

Hi Bill,

I was recommended to put this oil stabiliser into the warn gearbox instead of grease and would never go back now. Mine is an XD9000 and we did the same with Dad's 9.5Ti Warn.

It is like golden syrup. I cleaned all the grease out after the 1st trip (from new) to the coast where the gearbox was full of water and the gears starting to show signs of the water and the tell tale orangie marks.

6 years later and lots of underwater use the gears are perfect, it repels water. Take the gearbox off, pour the water out, give another squirt of it and reassemble. A bonus is the freespool is very free also.

Going to do a bit more research but after seeing a fellow club member use it for his wheel bearings now (no grease at all) and never having to renew bearings since, might be worth a shot.

Glen

[wjw]

Who recommended it?

According to Mr Warn, there shouldn't be much grease in there, you should just coat the parts and not fill it like some people say.

I'll try it their way and let you know how it looks in a year

[wjw]

Have now finished the gear box end:

Forgot to tap the threads before I tried assembling it first time, so broke a bolt off Have a nice SAE tap and die set now...

And putting the 85 little balls back is a real PITA.

On to the drum and brake tomorrow night hopefully.