Winch Repair & Rebuild

[Matthew Welcher PWA]

That removal tool is a very nice set up!

[RicherRacing]

There are a couple of trouble spots in reconditioning the worm shaft bearings. The first is removing the bearing races from the retainers, and the second is setting the proper bearing preload.
Pic #29 shows the retainer in a vice prior to removing the bearing seal. The seal is easily removed and replaced with a suitable dia rod and a few hammer taps. The bearing race is quite difficult to remove by forcible methods, as access to the backside is very limited (pic #30). I initially tried freezing the race with a special cold spray, but it still required a lot of hammering with a mini-sledge on my mini cats-paw. You need to have the retainer held in a 6" or larger vice with the cats-paw alongside the lower half of the vice (pic #31). Hit the top of the cats-paw with a drift, and move around the race at 180 deg intervals. If you have access to welding equipment, the next post will show you a MUCH easier way....

My neighbor came up with a clever way to remove the bearings for my winch. He made a split flanged tool which was installed flange end in from the bearing side. The thin flange fits on the back side of the bearing race. Once installed, the tool is spread so the flange goes behind the race. Then flip it over and press out from behind.

[CSCameron]

I know this is an old thread, but I just finished reading all it because I am beginning my MU2 rebuild... excellent! This will be an invaluable resource. MaineSS, Thanks for taking the time to document the process.

Clark

[Charles Talbert]

Adding that much shim to get correct end play is not unusual at all; it is designed that way. The more you talk, the more it sounds like there is no real issue. I think a double check to ease your mind is in order, but I don't really expect a bad report.

[53Crusher]

Thanks Greg!

Hopefully the worm and shaft are set up correctly. First picture shows the rusty worm gear I had, and a much better one that I found. Put the better worm on a new shaft with new bearings etc... think the spacers are correct.

When I think about it now, I had to use two full sets of retainer gaskets in various thicknesses to get enough endplay. Seemed like an awful lot. At that point, I should have realized something wasn't quite right.

It will be a little while before I go back in, I'm in the middle of replacing my bed and don't want to open too many cans of worms at the same time :-)

[Greg Coffin]

Tim, from the pictures it looks like the old bearings were not seated all the way in the retainers, and the new bearings are not as well. It also appears that the shoulders are a little rough/rusted, so you may have to clean them to get the new cups to seat right. Some steel wool and elbow grease will probably do the trick.

If the shoulders are clean, then just press the bearings the rest of the way in, and reassemble the winch.

The next question is, if the bearings were not seated all the way, how were you able to get the right endplay with the bearing cups so far in? It may be that the shaft spacers that go on either side of the worm have been shortened (or maybe missing?). Let us know what you find.

And chances are you didn't hurt anything by spooling in a few hundred feet of cable. That is virtually no load for the winch.

Best of luck, and hopefully all of this is a non-issue.

[53Crusher]

Great info Charles! Thank you again for clarifying.
No fault but my own, nobody got hurt and hopefully none of my new gears were damaged. I have only run the winch long enough to spool the line on it so maybe all will be OK.

Think this is just another one of those life lessons I get to learn the hard way but remember forever...... Always bottom out cups into their retainers!

Seriously though, this is the best way to find out what I did wrong. Won't really cost me anything but time on some weekends. Thanks to everyone for their willingness to share their expertise with the rest of us.

[Charles Talbert]

I was pressed for time yesterday, just a couple more comments concerning the set up.

When a load is applied to the worm gear assembly, the assembly has a tendency to screw itself out of mesh with the brass gear if it has some place to go. This is why the cups must be bottomed in the retainers, or when the pressure is applied, it will push the cup all the way into the bore. Since the end play was not set up with cups fully seated, massive end play will be present resulting in massive damage to the brass gear, bearing retainers, and housing as the worm moves out of mesh under load.

Common sense rule of thumb applies here; in any gear set up, lateral or end wise movement must be contained between a minimum or maximum allowable spec, once a set up gets outside of that spec for whatever reason, things start to deform or break under load.

MaineSS did a great job with his winch rebuild, and took much time to detail it here. We had several conversations via phone while his was in progress. If something that was written doesn't sound right, then is the time to check it out before making an assumption that may be incorrect. I myself am not a writer, and time limitations greatly affect the time I spend on forums anymore. Taking into consideration that I'm not a great writer, sometimes I write things that may not be clearly understood by all, even though it makes perfect sense to me. Any time something I write isn't clear, feel free to call the shop, send an email, or question it here. I surely don't want to be at fault for guiding anyone in a wrong direction.

[53Crusher]

Thanks Gentlemen!
Sounds like I need to go back into my winch and make these corrections. Would rather find out about it this way than from a catastrophic failure.

[Charles Talbert]

This question concerning whether to press bearing cups fully into the retainer is very simple to answer. YES, cups must be fully pressed against the shoulder in the bore of the retainer. If they aren't it will be utterly impossible to do a correct end play set up as the assembly will just be floating in the retainers until cups bottom out. When a load is applied, the result will be disastrous and costly.

If you don't have to adjust the retainers outward to obtain correct running clearances, you have an issue with the assembly besides a set up, something is seriously wrong.

[53Crusher]

Winch worm shaft bearing cups

Greg- You post causes me to wonder about my set up now....As I have only done this once, I can't speak with any amount of expertise. You have far more experience. I did look through my old pictures and it may not be entirely visible, but my old cups were level before I hit them with the welder to remove. If you look closely, you might be able to see the rusty area between where the old cup was and the lip.

Your logic does make sense to me, but I would add another question. When you bottom out the cups, are you still able to adjust outward with gaskets? Seems like there will be another 1/4" or so of endplay before adjustments and we can only adjust outward.

Scratching my head now :-)

[Greg Coffin]

As others have said before, this is a great write-up. It makes me a little envious of new Power Wagon owners today, since a lot of this information was all but unavailable 20+ years ago.

Reading through your description, I may be misunderstanding what you have written in one section, so I will quote here from Post #21 on page 2:

The replacement race is NOT bottomed out in the retainer- just press it level with the topside.

It sounds like you are saying that the worm shaft bearings cups should not be pressed all the way into the bearing retainers. If that's what you mean, I have to disagree. Under heavy winching the front (or rear) bearing cup will be pressed further into the retainer, and the shaft end play will become massive. If I'm misunderstanding you, please forgive me.

Also, I had the same problem removing the bearing cups from the retainers. Someone had been into the winch before I got it, and buggered up the seats for the bearing cups trying to drive them out with a drift from the seal side. The picture below shows the area I'm describing.



I decided to chuck the retainer in a lathe and turn an 1/8" chamfer into the damaged edge of the seat, which accomplished two things: It cleaned up the burrs created during the prior repair, and created more room to grab the inside edge of the bearing cup with a drift. The bearing cup seats nicely now, and the oil seal has plenty of bore to seal against. A win-win!

Thanks again for the great write-up.

[pwrwagonfire]

Thanks for all of the pictures and information, I will be doing this myself this coming spring and this thread has been very informative

-T

[maineSS]

Winch Writeup

Tim;

Glad you found the writeup/pics useful. I have to say that digital cameras and the Internet have made DIY much more feasible today- if you look long enough, chances are good you'll find the info you need...

[Doc Dave]

Tim,
I did the same thing. I used a 1/2 inch army surplus safe line type clamp, but before I cranked down on it I wrapped a little swaging wire around the flemish braid where the clamp would be, then cranked it down tight with a 24" pipe wrench.
7/16 " clamps like you mention make rear mounted tail shaft accessories look common by comparison! In many years of looking off and on, I only found one come up on Ebay and it sold for over $100!
So far with my winch I have winched up several big poplar logs out of a creek bottom with no slippage. I don't believe the clamp being slightly big is a problem if one gets it on tight over the Flemish Braid.
However, using a 1/2" clamp over simply doubled 7/16" cable might be a different story.