Black Rat Tirfor style winch repair question?

you could try Nobels or Bullivants to look at it , may be expensive, they are quite simple, have you trieded puting weight on it and reversing it...., cheers Barry

Unbolt the sideplate and take a look, they are pretty simple beasts. The symptoms you describe are not only common on black rats, they are endemic to all hand winches. Try operating both the creeper handles once the wire rope is pushed into the jaws, changing their relative position sometimes helps the lock - don't know why. The cable release handle sometime needs to be pulled backwards sharply to start it working. Or it could be damaged, but I'd doubt it, probably stiff from not being used? Not a whole lot to go wrong with a hand winch, and I have been caught in your situation before (we used them in a marine environment) though, a lot of inox and some stern looks never went astray when dealing with a hand winch ;) . It'll drop and lock when you least expect it and the love affair will be back on... If you've seen the way riggers treat them, unless a tour bus drove over it I'd doubt it is damaged.

It can take some effort to pull that lever both out and up at the same time. Hope it ends well for you.