Mercury Winch?

[TeriAnn]

Anyone know anything about Mercury Winches?

I have one that I would like to find more information about.

Here is what I know so far:

My winch was labeled "Mercury winch" & Vancouver, Canada". I believe it was made in the early 1970's. I think this may be a very early product for the company.

The winch frame was made from flat sections of plate steel welded together.
There is reduction gearing attached to the motor front just before it goes to the the housing that has a hand crank. The motor gors to a complicated clutch that is basically a drum with an inner and outer shoe that is motion operated. The clutch output goes to a small gear & motorcycle like chain to a large gear on the end of the drum. The drum holds 120 feet of 3/8ths cable and I've never stalled the motor during a single pull. The motor looks like it was military surplus winch motor that is case grounded which means it only turns in one direction.

I've seen pictures of a later Mercury winch called the M10 (rated at 10,000 lbs pull). It has a more production like winch frame and what appears to be a smaller motor. The clutch for the later M10 was patented in 1976 by H. R. Therkelsen (United States Patent 3985047). There seems to be a Mercury Winch manufacturing company Ltd in Vancouver BC in the early 1970's.

There was a Mercury Winch International, Inc. in Bellevue, Washington in 1978. I suspect that t was the same or successor company.

Anyone have any additional information? It's a 35ish year old product that seems to have been lost to winch history.
:archaeolo

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Looks like a crude version of the current Warn 8274, which was their flagship product in their early days. Interetsingly enough, their original standup winch was called a Warn Belleview (mabey becuase of where it was made?). I wonder if Mercury was a company that Warn bought out?

A bit more info:
http://www.ih8mud.com/tech/oldwarn.php

 

[TeriAnn]

Looks like a crude version of the current Warn 8274, which was their flagship product in their early days. Interetsingly enough, their original standup winch was called a Warn Belleview (mabey becuase of where it was made?). I wonder if Mercury was a company that Warn bought out?

Maybe, but from the drawings, the Warn 8272 appears to be a much lighter duty winch than mine is and the drive parts are very different.

Thanks for your input.

 

[seriessearcher]

I second the 5687 Bellview

It looks similar to my 5687. The pictures do not allow for close inspection, but I have a simalr winch on my 1960 Series II

Very cool.

 

[ntsqd]

The name "Therkelsen" for some reason I don't know reminds me of the later "Megawinch" brand. Though hey look nothing alike.
The look of your winch is vaguely that of an old Pierce, but nothing shown on their page looks similar.

Hopefully those links are of some help, if only to eliminate what yours is not.

 

[TeriAnn]

It looks similar to my 5687. The pictures do not allow for close inspection, but I have a simalr winch on my 1960 Series II

Close inspection? I tore into the winch to get pictures and ended up building a web page to describe the winch.

Mercury Winch page

The Land Rover's engine crank handle doubles as a manual winch cranking handle

 

[Linus Tremaine]

perfect fit!

That hand crank looks like its too good to be true. Like you said, would be better with a little more leverage on the cranking end.

Makes me wonder if someone else hadn't thought of that before and fitted a series hand crank dog on there.

The world may never know.


I have thought about a winch on my truck, but with the stock motor, its just too handy when doing a valve adjustment. I dont think I could put up with climbing down to put a wrench on the crank or even worse bumping the starter until the motor stopped in the right spot.