[Leethal]

Ok a mate rang and said his 9500XP with the 6hp motor and synthetic rope was playing up, and only worked (for a few seconds) if you tapped motor with a hammer. Classic seized brush holder symptoms, due to corrosion caused by water ingress. I thought I'd document the process for benefit of those who may choose to service their own warn low mount. There are some differences with the warn 4.6 and 2.5 hp motors, but the principles are the same. Next time I do one of these motors I'll do a couple of posts on them in this thread if it helps.

I haven't done a Chinese winch, but in most cases the principles will be the same, except for the ones with the brake in the gearbox, but this may still be of some help.

As a disclaimer I point out that I have no trade qualifications in any related field, but I am self taught through only trial and error, but have rebuilt warn winches numbering possibly three figures, and have done a number of high mounts including those for competition use, so if anyone wants to squeal I'm doing it wrong, knock yourself out, I'm not perfect (but more than happy to learn).

Okey doke here goes...

 

[Leethal]

Ok we'll start with the motor. Undo the two hex head bolts on the end of the motor. You will usually have to tap the motor (ok belt it!) with a rubber mallet or similar to get it to come away from the drum support. Often the armature will be difficult to get out of the bearing, that's ok as you'll be pulling it out anyway. If that happens just slide the motor off the armature and then carefully lever the armature out.

Here you can see the drain hole was probably blocked, as shown by the water level.

Motor doesn't look pretty.... But if it was working very recently before konking out (as opposed to leaving it 6 or 12 months) then it can almost always be salvaged without too much difficulty.

Pull the armature out by the spline if you haven't already. It may need a bit of a yank. There will be three number two Phillips head screws in this model motor holding the brush housing in. Undo these, and another one that has an 8mm head nut on the inside, which earths one brush pair. Also undo the armature nut and push that through the housing, that has the other two brushes. Observe how it has insulators to separate it from the housing. Also note which brush wires go under/over parts of the housing, take a pic with your phone will help.

Ok now this is really important... Before you remove the brushes, take a photo of the assembly with your phone.

You'll see the three mounting screws are NOT an equilateral triangle, and without this pic it's not obvious which brushes go where when you put it back together.
Using a small flat blade screw driver, pull the springs back to allow the brushes to come out, backwards. If any are seized, you'll need inox and patience, but you will win.

Now clean all the motor parts in degreaser.

After cleaning, depending on corrosion present, use a small wire brush to clean as much as possible, and clean off all the dust with compressed air.

Your best friend here for motors is this stuff (or similar);

Red oxide anti fungal varnish. The white furry/crusty stuff in your motor when you open it up? ... That's a corrosive fungus that grows in electrical fields with moisture present. This helps stop it. Win win.

If any of the insulation is damaged on the brushes you can slide heat shrink over it and that will be fine. This one is ok so not needed.

An important point to make is that extreme care should always be taken when removing cable from your armature and field terminals (A, F1 and F2). If the nut at the bottom turns, it can brake the copper spot weld off the back of the bolt, inside the motor. If this happens, probably need to see a motor rewinder to get it fixed properly.

 

[Leethal]

Ok you need to paint the inside of the motor housing with the red oxide paint. You generally will not have to remove the field windings from the housing, which is the four torx screws on the outside (only two fields on the older magnum motors). Also paint in the end housing, and the brush housing.

You can also paint the armature, but it's important to tape up the copper section on the end first. The copper end section needs a light sanding to take it back to shiny copper for good contact. See the little black lines between each copper section at the end? With a small flat blade screw driver you need to give each one a scrape to make sure it's free of debris.

After it's all dry, this part is CRITICAL.

Good electrical contact needs to be made between the brush housing and the motor's body. Using a small wire brush attachment on a drill (or say a Dremel or something), take back to bare metal the four points inside the body where you removed the four screws earlier on, and also the three outside parts of the brush housing. I can't stress the importance of this step too much.

Ok referring back to your picture of the brush housing, refit the brushes. A good spray of inox will help lubricate them in the holders. You can then replace them in the housing, refitting the three mounting screws, the small screw and nut for one brush pair, and the armature bolt with insulators for the other.

Now for the fun bit... Refitting the armature. Slide it up until the bearing sits under the brushes. (On that note, the bearing was fine in this motor, but they are cheap from Ateco or Smithie Engineering if you need to replace them). Now with appropriate amount of obscenities, pull each brush back until you get them all back past the bearing and slide the armature up to that point.

Now it's a little easier, with a something softish like a plastic handle of some description, lever the brushes back a little further until you can slide the armature all the way up and the brushes are pushing firmly on the copper section of the armature. At this point I give the whole show a good squirt of inox.
With a wire brush (or die if necessary) clean the threads on the long motor bolts, and refit them through the end cap. This lets you ensure you are not forcing a bolt through a brush wire if you put the cap on first. Smear a layer of silicon on the end of the motor, all the way around, and refit the end cap. Put some silver grade anti seize (NOT copper based anti seize, no good for aluminium) on the end of the bolts, ready to refit to end cap. That's the motor done.

Oh, make sure to refit the small fibre washer into the motor end cap, and the steel washer at the end of the armature.

Sorry this isn't all in the order it was all done, I'm just trying to stick to one component at a time.


Ok removing the end caps... You need to remove the hex bolts from the tie rods. The bolts are steel, the rods are ally. Not good, and often they'll be very difficult to remove, even if winch is not that old. Try a good set of vice grips on the rod and a quality set of Allen keys.

The motor end drum support will easily slide off once the tie rods are removed. In the end is a cast ally cup called the motor coupler, it has the female spline that accepts the armature and the other end cups the brake. The coupler will easily come out.

Ok the gearbox end... To ensure the gearbox goes back in the correct orientation it is important to mark the drum support, the centre section, and the gearbox end housing. No point using a texta, the degreaser may remove it, or you may be painting it. I use a centre punch, one dot adjacent between two parts, and two dots adjacent on the other two. Can't possibly go wrong.

Again you may need a rubber mallet to seperate the parts. The gearbox in the warn low mounts from 9500 down is pretty much always the same (just different ratios), but the 10/12/15/16.5s are different again. Lots of little ball bearings to lose, but that's another story...

Undo the small Allen key bolts all around the end housing. You can seperate all the parts, and remove the small Allen key bolt from the freespool lever, and pull the lever out.

Degrease and clean all the gearbox components. Now another critically important thing to note... The sliding ring gear, the big one that the freespool lever moves in and out along the inside of the end housing? There is a big groove in the middle.... Well actually it's not EXACTLY in the middle, and if you refit this the wrong way you will have no freespool. One of the two halves has another, much shallower groove. This end MUST be toward the motor end of the winch, facing this way.

(On a side note, see how relatively little grease warn put in gearbox from factory in above pic? I have no comment here, just an observation. I don't like their grease type, it goes like a wax after a while and doesn't seem to be where it should after a few years in my humble opinion.)

Ok on Brando4x4's advice from another thread, this time I'm trying a slurry of grease, and gear oil. I got a good consistency (a bit runnier than toothpaste), mixed up in an ice cream container. Being a bit runnier than plain grease, hopefully the freespool will be a little easier, but they are always pretty crook on a low mount no matter what you do.
Fit the tiny gear on the end into the brass bush, with a little of the grease mix. Rub some of the grease on the bottom splines, and give the walls of the end housing a good squirt with inox. Rub some more inox and a little oil on the outside of the ring gear, and slide it in the correct way. I treat the sliding gear a little different than the planetaries, and try to have hardly any grease on the outside wall; this must spin as freely as possibly if you are to have any hope of a freespool that isn't like a gym workout.
You can now refit the freespool lever and screw.

 

[Leethal]

To confirm the sliding gear is in the correct way, turn the freespool lever to engage. The gear should slide down to the bottom, and not be able to be turned.

Turn the lever to freespool. The gear should come up flush with the end housing, and be pretty easy to turn.

Put a good dollup of grease mix on to the internal splines, and slide the smallest of the three planetary sets down the middle, turning it to ensure it slips over the small gear at the bottom.

Then do the same with the next planetary set. Fit a new gasket (silicon would be fine if you don't have gaskets), and sit you middle housing on top, aligning the centre punch marks from before removal to ensure its in the correct spot.. Temporarily slide two of the bolts down opposing holes to make sure it stays put while you refit the last planetary gear. Before this, there is a plastic disc you removed. Slide it down to the bottom with the smooth side facing the end of the gearbox, ie the side with the groove in the middle facing the motor end.

Now fit the large planetary. One side is splined in the middle hole, one is smooth and round. It is critical that the splined side faces the motor end, as this engages the winch drum. This can be a real bugger to line it up, the trick, if it looks otherwise all good, is to fit the hexagonal drive shaft all the way down, and turn it by hand while gently pushing the gear downwards. It will suddenly drop. You can then fit the final small gear into the middle, this is the one that fits into the motor drum.

With another gasket or silicon, and again aligning your marks, refit the gearbox to the drum support, ready to be refitted to the winch.

On a side note, if you need to rotate the gearbox to get the freespool lever into a better position, be aware that the ridges will not line up every hole, only every second, depending on which part you move. Take great car or you could break the ears where the small hex bolts go through.

Ok your gearbox is now perfect.

 

[Leethal]

Ok let's go back to the motor end drum support before we look at the brake.

It was two grooves, drain holes, built in. The theory is that one faces down, in either of the two common directions the winch is mounted, ie face down (like most American bars) or face forwards (like a lot of Australian ones, but not all).

The two main problems here are a) one may be a drain but that makes the other a filler hole, and b) genuine Nissan steel bars that have the winch mounted upside down, so one drain hole is sideways and the other is smack in the middle at the TOP not bottom, and most fitters aren't aware (or don't care) about this.

I die grind a bigger drain at the bottom, against the thoughts of many, but I reckon the standard one clogs up too easily. I also silicon all the way around the motor and especially the other drain hole, so it has NO filler, but NO silicon 20mm either side of our bottom drain, we don't want that clogged!

I also run a tap through the threads that will take the bolts that hold the motor.

I then bolted the motor (noting original orientation, same method as gearbox) and tested it. I have a battery under my bench with a master key for testing winch motors, this one spun beautifully and sounds great.

To test you connect earth to the bottom bolt (also cleaned surrounding area with the wire brush attachment). Connect a jump lead between A and F1, and connect the power to F2. That winches in. To winch out, join F2 to A and power to F1.

Once again the bearing is great, but easily pressed out with a socket and hammer if replacement required.

Ok next post we'll look at the brake.

 

[Leethal]

Ok removing the brake... Fit the hex drive shaft into the brake assembly. Using an 8mm ring spanner, you will see, if it's working correctly, that you can turn it one way but it should lock within a quarter of a turn at the most the other way.
Turn it the way that lets it turn, and at the same time tap the end of the shaft with the rubber mallet. It should move toward the motor end of the drum. When it's nearly out, you can turn the inner cam section by hand to loosen it and slide it all out.
Three pieces of brake material will fall out, and two cone shaped fittings on a partly splined shaft with two cam, and a spring between them.
This should all move quite freely. You can remove the circlip if you need to dismantle the whole thing, but not often necessary.

Clean the inside of the drum with degreaser, and a handy tool is a wire brush on the end of a long handle.

Do NOT spray any inox or grease inside drum, for the same reason you wouldn't put it on your car brakes!

For the same reason you only want a minimum of lubricant on cam shaft. I use a tiny spray of lanolin.

If needed, clean and lightly sand the three brake shoes, making sure there is no contamination on the friction surface.

Hold the brake by the OUTSIDE cam. Turn the INSIDE cam, HALF A TURN, ie slipping over ONE ridge in the cam, ANTI CLOCKWISE. This is very important. There will be a fair bit of resistance, because you're holding it against the spring pressure. Hold it there, and refit the three shoes. Gently slide it all back into the drums, fortunately this is easier than it sounds. It will be easier if you're holding the inner cam ramp toward the other, like my thumb and index finger in the pic. If you let go the spring pushes the two cones together, which forces the brake shoes against the drum inner wall, making it much harder to slide it in to where you want it. Slide the motor coupler (the ally cup) in there so the inner grooves are in the biggest gaps, and tap the brake down to roughly where it sat originally, you will see the marks inside the drum with a torch from the other side. Doesn't have to be perfect! But pretty close. It will find its spot when the whole show is put together. If it's being a bugger, use the hex shaft in the other end, as per removal, and turn it while tapping with rubber mallet from the end you want it to move from.

Hope that all makes sense because the brake is the hardest bit to explain.

Ok now we can slide the motor end on, and also the gearbox end, lining up the hex shaft between the brake and the tiny gear at the end of the gear box. On an older winch you may see signs of wear on the hex shaft at the gearbox end, for this reason I usually fit them opposite way to which they came out. There is a plastic/nylon bushing that fits inside each drum support and the drum revolves in that. They need to be in good nick, and also need a light coating of grease to help them out.

It's a good idea to tap the threads in the tie rods; and die the threads on the bolts, and use silver grade anti seize. They don't need to be stupidly tight, opposite to what you may imagine they are there to stop ends pulling in, not from trying to seperate.

On another note, this winch has been used without the rope tensioned as tight as it could have been. Rope has pulled in to lower layers and was a bugger to get it out. To get it off I had to sit the drum on top of my press, and wrap the rope around the die spigot and give it what for.

Probably don't try this at home, but for the record it worked

I painted the drum in galv, and thought I had black but turns out I didn't, so it stays galv.

Now coming with warn supplied rope, it has a spliced end to fit to drum.

With aftermarket ropes, they usually come with a cable lug, like steel rope. This is next to useless and often pops out as soon as the rope spins on the drum a little, then that's it. To combat this, I normal poke about 8 inches (200mm) of rope through a wiring clamp, splice it into itself, and screw the wiring clamp into the drum, like so;

Works a treat. And coz it's a mate, I acid cleaned his hawse and hook too ;-)

So there we have it... One fully operational 9500XP Warn winch, exceptional winch it is too, now a little better than new.

Hope this helps somebody at some point.

 

[Leethal]

Now I've thought about it, there are some fairly big differences with the warn 4.6 and 2.5 motors. I will do one of each of them and take pics, as soon as I get time. Pretty sure there's a couple lying around.

Sorry if I've forgotten anything in the above stuff, if I think of anything I'll edit it later

Oh... A couple of things. An M8000 is smaller than an XD9000. Even the drum supports and gearbox are smaller. Most parts not interchangeable between 8000 and 9000.

Even old and new 9000s have some differences.
Some models have different length hex drive shafts, so don't get caught out there. Also the brake on some has a pin sticking out toward the motor. The motor coupler MUST have a hole at the base of the spline for this.

With the 4.6 motors on the XD9000, when you remove motor end cap, the brush housing is a plastic and ally unit, held on by the cap and one small screw you'll see in a copper strip coming up from the field housing. The ally base of this housing rests on the lip of the motor housing when it's all together, and it is CRITICAL you use your wire wheel or similar to remove all paint etc from both these surfaces, as that how the earth connection is made from the brush housing to the earth bolt. I'll take pics when I have one apart.

A good mod is to use the 9500XP drum supports on the XD9000, as they have the water resistant lip seals.

Another thing I didn't go into is checking for continuity to earth brush circuit and ensuring isolation from earth of the other two. I wanted to keep it as straight forward as possible for people to have a go without feeling daunted.

Ok anything else I think of I'll pipe up.

 

[Dirty Dub]

Great write up and photos, thanks for taking the time. It will definitely be of assistance to me when I do mine.

 

[ABM]

Top quality write up Leethal
Added/saved to my service favorites.
I notched a drain hole into the motor housing
instead of the winch it's self with a grinder wheel.
works aswell.
Where is that red oxide spray available from?

 

[Leethal]

Thanks fellas.

The red oxide varnish I get from Alanco, and auto electrical wholesaler that sells stuff from consumables to alts and starters. Pretty sure they are only WA though, so not much help sorry. If no luck try a 240 volt electrical specialist? Or a motor rewinder? If anyone knows a national chain that sells it please post!

I've also added some points to my last post about the 4.6 motors.

 

[Bogger]

Top write up Leethal and a very worthy post to be the first to be added to the sticky collection of the recovery section in my opinion. So moderators please make this a sticky if possible.

I believe CRC sell the same red oxide varnish called red urethane seal coat, correct me if I'm wrong but its what I have been using for the past few years for battery terminals, starter motor and alternator, Auto sparky at work put me onto it. I think Mal Leslie uses the same product.

http://www.crcindustries.com.au/red-urethane

This thread is worth its weight in gold and believe you will be owed a beer or carton or 2 in the future as many will find value in it.

 

[heyhey]

Nice job!

I'd also like to point out that Warn had a series of winches prior to the XPs that had a second set of planetary gears at the motor. I have a HS9500 on the rear of the Patrol that will need a service soon. I'll add to here when I do.

 

[Leethal]

Nice job!

I'd also like to point out that Warn had a series of winches prior to the XPs that had a second set of planetary gears at the motor. I have a HS9500 on the rear of the Patrol that will need a service soon. I'll add to here when I do.

Good stuff Heyhey, I've never pulled one of them apart so will be very interested to see pics of its insides when you do.

Thanks Bogger. I'm sure that crc product will be pretty much the same stuff, just as good. If Mal Leslie uses it then it is gospel ;-) he is The Lord of Warn.

And being crc should make it easy to get hold of too.

 

[Sooty_10]

Hey Leethal,or anyone with knowledge. I have a new warn 6 HP motor and when i connect it up as described here it doesn't spin? seems to want to but just doesn't. I pulled it apart according to the directions here, the bushes and armature out had a look, and it is all new no corrosion or anything that looks like a short?

 

[heyhey]

What power supply are you using. And what solenoid if using one to test?

 

[brando4x4]

Hey Leethal,or anyone with knowledge. I have a new warn 6 HP motor and when i connect it up as described here it doesn't spin? seems to want to but just doesn't. I pulled it apart according to the directions here, the bushes and armature out had a look, and it is all new no corrosion or anything that looks like a short?

at a guess you have wired it up wrong...

 

[Sooty_10]

Connecting it direct to power supply, earth bolt to -ve terminal on battery, F1 to +ve then bridging A to F2. Using battery in patrol, thought maybe wasn't getting enough voltage so turned patrol on and it definitely got more juice, but still not spinning. It does however do something as when power is appiled I can't spin the armature by hand at all.

 

[Sooty_10]

at a guess you have wired it up wrong...

At a guess I could have figured that..... Hopefully I have, but as I wired it up as per leethals guide and numerous youtube clips I believe there is more to it than that unfortunately.

 

[Leethal]

It's times like these Sooty 10 that I wished we all lived within a few suburbs... Then you could bring it around and I'd have a look while you fixed my brakes haha! Only been procrastinating 5 weeks who needs them?

But anyway... When you connect it up, does anything get hot? If there's a short, current will still flow, but if it can't become kinetic energy (spinning armature) then it has to become something else (heat).

Most of the possibilities here are more likely to apply to an older, used motor, not a new one. For example if one of the motor bolts wears through a field insulator, or through the fabric around the brush wires, or if a brush rubs up against the body of the motor if the cardboard type insulating stuff has gone. The 6hp motors have heat shrink around the motor bolts to minimise this, but I find if you put new heat shrink on it, it tends to be pretty hard to get it through the bolt hole as it's a bit thicker, which is why I didn't go into it before. I have, in the past, put the bolts through the hole, THEN put heat shrink on them, that works ok too.

Mate do you have a multimeter? Can you test one brush pair for continuity to the body (ground) and the other pair for open circuit?

Cav you push brushes back a little into their holders to confirm the springs are pushing them quite firmly on to the armature?

Can you try the motor in the opposite direction? Ie power to F2, and connect A to F1. Sorry mate clutching at straws a bit here, if it's new it may be a faulty field winding or armature for instance, when they're brand new there isn't too much it can be I would think.

 

[Leethal]

Sorry another thing Sooty, to check for faulty armature, there should be NO continuity between the centre shaft (as in where the spline goes in to the winch) and the commutator (the shiny copper bit that the brushes push on to). This is critical, if there is continuity it's munted.

The machine to test these is called a growler.... No joke. If a hacksaw blade vibrates next to it then it has a short.

I don't have a growler, in case anyone was wondering.