Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Best way to maintain a wjinch is to use it! Its the sitting idle bit that
f%#ks them.....

After a days's playing, just spool it out to clean the cable, remove the control box cover and clean it out, and spray with WD 40. Not hard at all.

As for no seals, there all the same, just like my high mount, we just have to get over it...

Just pull it apart, clean it, check the brushes, grease it up, and seal all faces with silicone or Loctite RTV. On the XD 9000's there's two 'notches' on one of the mating faces, that looks like a water drain, but most likely lets the crud in, get the silicone into this especially. As for the control box, new solenoids are about $15 each from Ashdown's.

Winches are VERY simple things. Either they work or they don't.

Pirate 4x4 has a tech write up on a M8274 hi mount, including the wiring. Might help ya

If a winch is made for the 4WD market, and you are paying at the higher range of the market, then it should be designed to require minimum maintenance, no excuses. Thats what sets a great product aside from a crap one. In every other industry which creates products for their intended market, they design them correctly for their intended use.

Although I imagine the average Aussie 4WD gets a lot more abuse than the average American or European 4WD (flame suit ready)

Yarno wrote:I personally wouldn't rely on a warn winch, they come standard without any seals to the gearbox, so they fill up with water and mud, which is great for gears and the free spool.

...

Fact - 58% of Warn Winches fail the first time they are used in anger- howvere as 55% are never actually used in anger, maybe this is a good thing!

Latest upgrade in the UK is the fitting of the XP 6Hp motor to anything that moves.
Biggest two moneyspinners in the UK iare 1). selling XP motors 2). Selling replacement when they fail.
Most stupid UK fad - fitting XP motors to Huskies - how to wreck good winch...

If a winch won't pull harde enough or fast enough, don't modify it - buy a better one, if there isn't a better one then take a good look at what you are doing with it!

If all you need to do is get yourself out of the sh*te buy a slow, strong reliable winch. if you want speed, buy an 8274 and carry spares

It's not rocket science is it

someone needs to take a long hard look at their winch...Warn winches DO come with gaskets on the gearbox!


And forget the cheap chinese winches - they're not worth a w4nk!

Cossie wrote:
And forget the cheap chinese winches - they're not worth a w4nk!

Why? Give me proof, real proof, not hearsay or urban legend - go on give me proof.

I have abused a load of 'Cheap Chinese Winches' this last year. What have I found? That 'Expensive Chinese Winches' like Warn and Ramsey ought to look at their pricing!

grazza wrote:If a winch is made for the 4WD market, and you are paying at the higher range of the market, then it should be designed to require minimum maintenance, no excuses. Thats what sets a great product aside from a crap one. In every other industry which creates products for their intended market, they design them correctly for their intended use.

Although I imagine the average Aussie 4WD gets a lot more abuse than the average American or European 4WD (flame suit ready)

Bingo! thats my thought exactly why pay heaps of money for s%#t products when you can buy other s%#t products for alot less money

Lao Tsu wrote:

Cossie wrote:
And forget the cheap chinese winches - they're not worth a w4nk!

Why? Give me proof, real proof, not hearsay or urban legend - go on give me proof.

I have abused a load of 'Cheap Chinese Winches' this last year. What have I found? That 'Expensive Chinese Winches' like Warn and Ramsey ought to look at their pricing!

I have fitted more Warn winches than I care to remember, and have also stripped, rebuilt and serviced heaps of them too.

I have also had the misfortune to fit 3 wanky Chinese efforts now - the quality has to be seen to be believed. There is also a good chance it will not fit into an ARB bar (and most people tend to use ARB bars) without serious modifications and a new fairlead, by which time you may as well have just bought a Warn.
The gearboxes on the ones I've seen could not be rotated so there's a good chance you wont be able to reach the clutch handle.
2 solenoids compared to 4.
electric cables that look like shoelaces.
electric cables running across sharp unfinished edges inside the control box.
compare the weight of a warn and a chinese effort.

At the end of the day you only need to see both side by side and you will see the difference yourself.

Cossie wrote:
I have fitted more Warn winches than I care to remember, and have also stripped, rebuilt and serviced heaps of them too.

I have also had the misfortune to fit 3 wanky Chinese efforts now - the quality has to be seen to be believed. There is also a good chance it will not fit into an ARB bar (and most people tend to use ARB bars) without serious modifications and a new fairlead, by which time you may as well have just bought a Warn.
The gearboxes on the ones I've seen could not be rotated so there's a good chance you wont be able to reach the clutch handle.
2 solenoids compared to 4.
electric cables that look like shoelaces.
electric cables running across sharp unfinished edges inside the control box.
compare the weight of a warn and a chinese effort.

At the end of the day you only need to see both side by side and you will see the difference yourself.

So, as an expert winch fitter/fixer you have made your decision on '3 wanky chinese efforts'. Interesting.

Decisions based on Solenoid numbers, weight, ARB fitment... mmmmm

Oh well

Edited to say - I have had a sh*te day and am far from my restrained mood. Your post shows that you have as much understanding of available products on the winch market as a trumpet playing monk in a bucket...

Cossie wrote:someone needs to take a long hard look at their winch...Warn winches DO come with gaskets on the gearbox!

that is right but they are quite useless without a seal on the shaft (drum end) going into the planitry gear set, so in actual fact the hold the water in there...

grazza wrote: If a winch is made for the 4WD market, and you are paying at the higher range of the market, then it should be designed to require minimum maintenance, no excuses. Thats what sets a great product aside from a crap one. In every other industry which creates products for their intended market, they design them correctly for their intended use.

My point exactly, they should be alot better than they are.

Now I'm all for maintenance but it is a total waste of time if you know water is going in there and you don't strip the whole gearbox down, and that is way to much work every time it hits water, would you guys be happy if every tume you went through a water puddle you had to strip the diffs down I don't think so you would go and get diffs with seals in them.
But in saying that the problem is that warn is the best and they don't have seals in them except for one of them. I still think it is total crap that this has happened for so long, we could be spending more time on our rigs rather than working on our winches.

Where would one go for product support ie warrenty claim for these ebay chinese winches! the local take away shop?
As we have seen recently the closing down of posably one of australia's largest resaler for these winches.(you know the ones that where modified to be water proof)
The chinese whould rather you buy from the back yard seller ( who may or not be around when you have troubles) than from a shop
At least if you have troubles with a warn there is a shop you can go to
If you think i own a warn please read this post from the begining

teh handwinch will never fail you
anlong with a hilify jack

these are tools you can depend on in all circumstances.

Jes

ive herd if your in desperation a high lift can be used as a winch
but ide gather this would be in very extreme conditions

eg electric winch burnt out, not enough food for another day and the nearest civilization is like 2 hours away


cheers
elliot

<quote>
I have also had the misfortune to fit 3 wanky Chinese efforts now - the quality has to be seen to be believed. There is also a good chance it will not fit into an ARB bar (and most people tend to use ARB bars) without serious modifications and a new fairlead, by which time you may as well have just bought a Warn.
The gearboxes on the ones I've seen could not be rotated so there's a good chance you wont be able to reach the clutch handle.
2 solenoids compared to 4.
electric cables that look like shoelaces.
electric cables running across sharp unfinished edges inside the control box.
compare the weight of a warn and a chinese effort.
<unquote>

What a load of crap!

The mounting bolts are the same as the Warne equivalent winches, so they fit on ARB Bars.
The gearboxes can be rotated. The gears are steel.
The electric cables are about a centimeter thick.
The control boxes do not have sharp edges.
The Chinese winches are lighter. So? They pull at 12000lb, just like the Warne, at half the price!
If you actually look at the ebay winches, at least two have registered company names (ACME in Melbourne and Urban Warrior in Sydney) with addresses, phone numbers, etc... If something goes wrong, they are contactable, they have a place of business. They don't have a national distributer network like Warne, but they are half the price! If you want to, you can pop round and have a look at one, and buy direct from them.

Look, I am sure Warne make great winches. But most people are sick of the ridiculous markups charged by almost every 4WD retail outlet. Why pay a ridiculous price for something that may or may not get used a couple of times a year? They all do the same job, and I know the failure rate for the Chinese winches is not bad at all (we have had only a couple of problems, but they can be traced back to user error. No gearboxes, or solenoids, or motors have failed on any winches we have sold. ). Some one mentioned 58% of Warnes don't work the first time they are used.

Come on.....

Keep the tech flowing I have removed some chit chat

Tom

LC105 wrote:

I have also had the misfortune to fit 3 wanky Chinese efforts now - the quality has to be seen to be believed. There is also a good chance it will not fit into an ARB bar (and most people tend to use ARB bars) without serious modifications and a new fairlead, by which time you may as well have just bought a Warn.
The gearboxes on the ones I've seen could not be rotated so there's a good chance you wont be able to reach the clutch handle.
2 solenoids compared to 4.
electric cables that look like shoelaces.
electric cables running across sharp unfinished edges inside the control box.
compare the weight of a warn and a chinese effort.

What a load of crap!

The mounting bolts are the same as the Warne equivalent winches, so they fit on ARB Bars.
The gearboxes can be rotated. The gears are steel.
The electric cables are about a centimeter thick.
The control boxes do not have sharp edges.
The Chinese winches are lighter. So? They pull at 12000lb, just like the Warne, at half the price!
If you actually look at the ebay winches, at least two have registered company names (ACME in Melbourne and Urban Warrior in Sydney) with addresses, phone numbers, etc... If something goes wrong, they are contactable, they have a place of business. They don't have a national distributer network like Warne, but they are half the price! If you want to, you can pop round and have a look at one, and buy direct from them.

Look, I am sure Warne make great winches. But most people are sick of the ridiculous markups charged by almost every 4WD retail outlet. Why pay a ridiculous price for something that may or may not get used a couple of times a year? They all do the same job, and I know the failure rate for the Chinese winches is not bad at all (we have had only a couple of problems, but they can be traced back to user error. No gearboxes, or solenoids, or motors have failed on any winches we have sold. ). Some one mentioned 58% of Warnes don't work the first time they are used.

Come on.....

See I was just about to give you some credit for defending your pro-chinese winch ideals. Now I am a happy warn winch customer and have no want or need to try something else. I have also found from experience in purchasing other products that cheaper chinese copies do not last as long nor are they of the same quality. (I have no idea about the winches)..

Now you want a level playing field and we now have a 'he said' - 'she said' argument going. Now why discredit it all by throwing in the line "Some one mentioned 58% of Warnes don't work the first time they are used". You do know 109% of all statistics are made up or incorrect.

LC105 wrote:<quote>
I have also had the misfortune to fit 3 wanky Chinese efforts now - the quality has to be seen to be believed. There is also a good chance it will not fit into an ARB bar (and most people tend to use ARB bars) without serious modifications and a new fairlead, by which time you may as well have just bought a Warn.
The gearboxes on the ones I've seen could not be rotated so there's a good chance you wont be able to reach the clutch handle.
2 solenoids compared to 4.
electric cables that look like shoelaces.
electric cables running across sharp unfinished edges inside the control box.
compare the weight of a warn and a chinese effort.
<unquote>

What a load of crap!

The mounting bolts are the same as the Warne equivalent winches, so they fit on ARB Bars.
The gearboxes can be rotated. The gears are steel.
The electric cables are about a centimeter thick.
The control boxes do not have sharp edges.
The Chinese winches are lighter. So? They pull at 12000lb, just like the Warne, at half the price!
If you actually look at the ebay winches, at least two have registered company names (ACME in Melbourne and Urban Warrior in Sydney) with addresses, phone numbers, etc... If something goes wrong, they are contactable, they have a place of business. They don't have a national distributer network like Warne, but they are half the price! If you want to, you can pop round and have a look at one, and buy direct from them.

Look, I am sure Warne make great winches. But most people are sick of the ridiculous markups charged by almost every 4WD retail outlet. Why pay a ridiculous price for something that may or may not get used a couple of times a year? They all do the same job, and I know the failure rate for the Chinese winches is not bad at all (we have had only a couple of problems, but they can be traced back to user error. No gearboxes, or solenoids, or motors have failed on any winches we have sold. ). Some one mentioned 58% of Warnes don't work the first time they are used.

Come on.....

Mate i have the chinese winch i have the ARB winch bar yep the winch bolted up the fairlead roller didnot i tried both sizes and still had to buy the warn fairled roller for $300 now i have 2 pieces of crap sitting in my shed that was no use to me at all as for the 12000lb pulling power who knows it shure struggled to pull a hilux out of a heavey bog at that rating it should be able to lift the thing of the ground
and i still say to anybody who wants to buy a winch save up a bit more and buy a warn

and we all know you sell the cheap chinese winches

hmm
one could apply the same principal to 4WD's

why dont we all save up for a unimog?

Jes

Hamo wrote:

LC105 wrote:<quote>
I have also had the misfortune to fit 3 wanky Chinese efforts now - the quality has to be seen to be believed. There is also a good chance it will not fit into an ARB bar (and most people tend to use ARB bars) without serious modifications and a new fairlead, by which time you may as well have just bought a Warn.
The gearboxes on the ones I've seen could not be rotated so there's a good chance you wont be able to reach the clutch handle.
2 solenoids compared to 4.
electric cables that look like shoelaces.
electric cables running across sharp unfinished edges inside the control box.
compare the weight of a warn and a chinese effort.
<unquote>

What a load of crap!

The mounting bolts are the same as the Warne equivalent winches, so they fit on ARB Bars.
The gearboxes can be rotated. The gears are steel.
The electric cables are about a centimeter thick.
The control boxes do not have sharp edges.
The Chinese winches are lighter. So? They pull at 12000lb, just like the Warne, at half the price!
If you actually look at the ebay winches, at least two have registered company names (ACME in Melbourne and Urban Warrior in Sydney) with addresses, phone numbers, etc... If something goes wrong, they are contactable, they have a place of business. They don't have a national distributer network like Warne, but they are half the price! If you want to, you can pop round and have a look at one, and buy direct from them.

Look, I am sure Warne make great winches. But most people are sick of the ridiculous markups charged by almost every 4WD retail outlet. Why pay a ridiculous price for something that may or may not get used a couple of times a year? They all do the same job, and I know the failure rate for the Chinese winches is not bad at all (we have had only a couple of problems, but they can be traced back to user error. No gearboxes, or solenoids, or motors have failed on any winches we have sold. ). Some one mentioned 58% of Warnes don't work the first time they are used.

Come on.....

Mate i have the chinese winch i have the ARB winch bar yep the winch bolted up the fairlead roller didnot i tried both sizes and still had to buy the warn fairled roller for $300 now i have 2 pieces of crap sitting in my shed that was no use to me at all as for the 12000lb pulling power who knows it shure struggled to pull a hilux out of a heavey bog at that rating it should be able to lift the thing of the ground
and i still say to anybody who wants to buy a winch save up a bit more and buy a warn

and we all know you sell the cheap chinese winches

dont you own a drill??

Mate the holes are not the problem it was the position of the rollers that don't fit the ARB winch bar
as peaple who own 1 whould know there is a sort of bump protection bracket on the front of the arb winch bar to protect the fairlead roller
No i'm not going to cut up this fine looking winch just because this does not fit ( I had to buy a Warn fairlead roller at $300)
and they keep misleading peaple saying they do

jessie928 wrote:teh handwinch will never fail you
anlong with a hilify jack

these are tools you can depend on in all circumstances.

Jes

And a Shovel. It fits in nicely jammed in behind the spare on my MK.
At the end of the day we can only spend what we can afford. Im waiting for a PTO to pop up.

Cheers

Do these PTO/Hydraulic winches have seals into the gearboxes, I know they have seals on the hydraulic motor as it would be stupid to build somthing without a seal.

Lao Tsu wrote:

Yarno wrote:I personally wouldn't rely on a warn winch, they come standard without any seals to the gearbox, so they fill up with water and mud, which is great for gears and the free spool.

...

Fact - 58% of Warn Winches fail the first time they are used in anger- howvere as 55% are never actually used in anger, maybe this is a good thing!

Latest upgrade in the UK is the fitting of the XP 6Hp motor to anything that moves.
Biggest two moneyspinners in the UK iare 1). selling XP motors 2). Selling replacement when they fail.
Most stupid UK fad - fitting XP motors to Huskies - how to wreck good winch...

If a winch won't pull harde enough or fast enough, don't modify it - buy a better one, if there isn't a better one then take a good look at what you are doing with it!

If all you need to do is get yourself out of the sh*te buy a slow, strong reliable winch. if you want speed, buy an 8274 and carry spares

It's not rocket science is it

Thats rubbish I have a warn high mount and I use it most weekends I had the 6hp motor fitted to it ands its the best thing I have ever down it is a super reliable winch that will pull anything out of anything (almost) best thing I ever did

runnin4life wrote:ive herd if your in desperation a high lift can be used as a winch
but ide gather this would be in very extreme conditions

eg electric winch burnt out, not enough food for another day and the nearest civilization is like 2 hours away


cheers
elliot

Off topic for this thread but yes you can, however.....
The total travel available is 1200mm (4 foot HiLift)
By the time you rig it up and tension it up you usually have about 400-600mm of travel left to actually move the vehicle with. If thats not enough you have to keep re-rigging it. Its a lot of work but useful if the vehicle is just stuck on an obstacle or has bellied on a rock.

I've done a few demos during training but never had to do it in a real situation.

if u look to your left thats a ebay winch it took the car two feet off the ground

AJ wrote:

runnin4life wrote:ive herd if your in desperation a high lift can be used as a winch
but ide gather this would be in very extreme conditions

eg electric winch burnt out, not enough food for another day and the nearest civilization is like 2 hours away


cheers
elliot

Off topic for this thread but yes you can, however.....
The total travel available is 1200mm (4 foot HiLift)
By the time you rig it up and tension it up you usually have about 400-600mm of travel left to actually move the vehicle with. If thats not enough you have to keep re-rigging it. Its a lot of work but useful if the vehicle is just stuck on an obstacle or has bellied on a rock.

I've done a few demos during training but never had to do it in a real situation.

if you use something like this



it'll keep the tension on it so you can keep re-setting the hi-lift.

http://www.4wdmegastores.com.au/__data/ ... _winch.jpg

http://www.4wd.ru/netcat_files/346_28.jpg

http://www.roverworld.com/images/Produc ... _small.jpg

http://www.winchsolutions.co.uk/files/swinch7.jpg

http://www.tellico4x4.com/catalog/image ... /12202.jpg

Are all 'cheap' Chinese Winches

http://www.warn.com/truck/images/19/9.0RC_winch.gif is an expensive chinese winch

as is this - excellent for using as a boat anchor

http://www.warn.com/truck/winches/src/i ... D9000i.jpg

made in the same factory as this, except this one is far better

http://www.winchsystems.co.uk/graphics/ ... 30x160.jpg

And this is the best off the shelf electric winch available (IMHO)
http://www.dborc.demon.co.uk/cache/138469.jpg
Not the fastest, not the cheapest, but stupidly reliable and strong...

But this is my opinion, not necessarily the right opinion, maybe not the wrong opinion, but it's mine

Just to put my 2cents worth in, i have a cheap chinese winch (Brawn 9500) and have never had any dramas with it. It is mounted on an ARB bar with the original fairlead and it fits perfectly. I can reach the lever ok and if i want i can buy an air operated setup for the lever. It suits me for the "occasional" recovery and the odd stump pull. Horses for courses i think!

Here's a pic for the disbelievers.............Pete!