warn winch wonder

Brenn, what amazed me when I stripped one, was the fact that there is NO bearings supporting the drum!!!!!!

Hey brenn dog, I just took the 12,000lb WARN off the front of my 100. not worth the maintenance or weight. Im developing something new in the recovery field and if it works, I'll share my secrets with everyone for free...

stay tuned,

Jarrod.

A few things:

a/ Where do you think most of the bearings found anywhere else in your fourbie were made? Or many of the ones sold daily in bearing joints all over the country? Why is it you assume that they are inferior quality? Obviously they aren't or there would be many seized gearboxes, winches, transfer cases, wheel bearings on fourbies and trailers etc. dotted all over the high country and the simpson.

b/ If the lack of bearing support on the drum is such an issue why are there so many out there still working like the day they were bought, and why are there so many copies of this style of winch by so many other companies?

I would have said that supporting the drum on bearings would have placed maximum loads on a very low surface area (the load is only taken on the round surface of the bearing on the casing much like the tyre is only touching the road for a very small percentage of the tread) and that a bush that has contact at reducing loads for half of its surface area and is only turning at low rpm for a short time is a much more appropriate system. Though a mechanical engineer may be able to confirm or refute this.

c/ Hope you used liquid grease in the planetry gear box - otherwise you will work your butt off dragging cable off the drum in free spool. See link below on rebuilding warn winches.

d/ Hope you reassembled the drum brake properly and tensioned it correctly as if you ever have rely on it and it's wrong it could kill you. Even the two ARB dealers I rang who said they would service my winch couldn't tell me how to tension the winch drum brake.

See link to Warn service on this page under Other Projects

I agree on the sealing issue but given the the drain holes on the motor flange are open to air to allow water to drain at some orientations what would be the point?

There's a lot more to these things than first inspection may reveal. How much thought did you give it before you typed your critique?

Hope you find the service document usefull, I did. Thanks to SG Leslie & Sons in Heidelberg Melbourne for their unselfish help (they could have just said send it down and we'll fix it for a price but they didn't) and offer of support if the task was too onerous.

There are bigger issues with this type of winch such as motor brush earthing that cause more failures than bearings.

Dave