XRC8 Maintenance

[barlowrs]

Well I finally pulled off my all-pro bumper for some “alterations” I have been planning, on while it was off, I took the time to do a few fixes on the winch.

First off, grease. For anyone that has tried to freewheel the XRC out, you will know you have to pull DAMN hard. The grease they use inside this thing is more like glue than grease. So I decided to open her up and put some GOOD grease in it.

Here you can see the gooey grease they use:

After a LOT of degreasing, I finally got the gears cleaned off and started to rebuild it.

Here you can see it packed with some good quality grease!

Once I got her back together, the difference was night and day, you could pull the line out with one hand and it didn’t take much force at all! It was great! I highly recommend this to ANYONE with an XRC winch.

Next up was the electrical stuff. Something that was pointed out to me by FlatBlak (http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=595031&postcount=22) was the electrical ground terminal. This winch pulls a LOT of current (as all winches do) so you want to make sure all terminals have a good connection, however the factory ground terminal has the majority of its surface painted:

After some scraping and filing, I had a nice surface to contact with the lugs. I feel much better about this now:

Then I decided I wanted to protect the wires a bit better up front, while I used all marine grade cables, I decided to shield them just for good measure. I shielded all the cables and put a plastic grommet where they run through the front radiator support.

One last thing I noticed when taking it apart was that there was some SLIGHT surface rust on the bolt that holds the synthetic line to the drum. I am not sure if this is a big deal, but I decided to upgrade it to stainless just in case.

I feel much better about this winch now and feel it is ready to save my @$$ if I get into some trouble.

 

[BriansFJ]

Handy. I'll have to look at this next time I have my bumper off...:smiley_drive:

 

[FlatBlak]

Thanks for the pics, that grease is nasty! But it doesn't suprise me. I have purchased a few new motocross bikes and always change the fluids and grease everything before riding a new bike. I was told that every little bit of fluid/grease that is exported from Japan (not sure bout China) has to be accounted for and duties paid. The fork oil was more like fish oil. That grease looks like the cheap stuff you can get at Harbor Freight.

What kind of grease should be used in a winch gearbox? Is the process fairly easy?

 

[barlowrs]

I am not sure what the rules as far as the grease are. There were no rubber o-rings or anything, so I imagine most grease you can get will work. If there were O-rings, it would depend on the materials (Nitrile, Ethylene Propylene, ect).

The grease I used (the white stuff - Tribolube 64 RPC) is a special grease we use in aerospace when we need VERY low friction at temp extremes. It is impregnated with Teflon, so its friction coef is VERY small, and has an incredible operating temp range. It is designed to operate from -100 to 400 degrees, so I doubt my winch will get stuck in cold weather now. Only problem is this grease has a VERY ridiculous cost (at about $25K for a 5 gallon bucket, I am glad I didn't have to pay for it)

 

[Bennyhana]

Mine was just the opposite on the grease, not enough...When I put it into free spool the memory of the steel wire would cause the drum to turn faster that you would like while pulling cable. It would loosen the wire down to the bottom layer. I took mine apart and used some GAA military grease...worked great.

 

[john101477]

I hear ya on the grease being like glue. I was unsure what exactly was doing it so i called the shop I bought it from and they had me call Smitty direct. I was on the phone for something like 3 minutes to give the model and S/N number. Also informed them that the remote was acting funny once in a while. The rep says "we got you covered" Three days later I received a brand new gear assembly with housing and a new remote.
Now the Winch works like a charm.