Mississippi-Mud Forums

I got this from another forum and thought I would throw it out to those of us that have the Chicago winch. I have one and have not had any trouble with it so far, with exception of bad connection at the battery, which Ben discovered for me.

I have done no maintenance on it so far with exception of rewrapping the cable after each use and spraying the cable with some type of lube. What do you guys think about this advice below. I'm going to pull the cover and see what it looks like in there. This certainly seems like it would lengthen the life of the HF winch, or any winch for that matter.

"Another word of advice - when you get it - unscrew the right side planetary cover and pump it full of GOOD grease. The cheap Chinese grease they come with doesn't seem very good. I regrease mine every spring...."

good call always a good idea to do a little preventive maintence

a little extra lube always helps

I love mine so far... it's slow but so am I...:wink2:

Ghost, It might be that I haven't been around many winches, and before I got mine, all I heard about these things was that they were soooooo slow, but when I finally used mine, it seemed pretty darn fast to be pulling a stuck vehicle out of a bad situation or to pull a tall downed tree into a clearing so it could be cut up... I have been extremely pleased with mine.

Thanks. I have never had mine apart. I may do that tomorrow. When I do, I will try to get a couple of pics.

SpoiledRotten Wrote:Ghost, It might be that I haven't been around many winches, and before I got mine, all I heard about these things was that they were soooooo slow, but when I finally used mine, it seemed pretty darn fast to be pulling a stuck vehicle out of a bad situation or to pull a tall downed tree into a clearing so it could be cut up... I have been extremely pleased with mine.

Spolied, I try to burn mine up (did one time), but I can go 5 miles down the road and get a new one with no questions asked. Can the warn boys do that?

Reserector Wrote:Thanks. I have never had mine apart. I may do that tomorrow. When I do, I will try to get a couple of pics.

Yes please take pics of what you do. I would like to do the same.

Plus with the big ole box gone I really like the way they look.

I think warn actually sells a particular grease that they say to use in the planetary gear assemblies of their winches...along with any other moving parts, but I had a Warn tech tell me a while back that marine grease will do ok to. But I wouldn't pack it in there like that guys seems to suggest...just a good film on all the gears in the planetary is what Iv'e always used.

I change the oil in my winch once a year!!!