Smittybuilt XRC 8 Maintenance

This was posted in my build thread, but I figued I would put this as its own thread for people searching for this information.

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.

 

Good write up. I just got my winch havent even mounted it up yet or taken it out of the box. Still waiting on my bumper to be built.

 

Nice write up.

 

My T-Max looks a lot like the gooey grease photos. What is the grease you replaced it with? How's it been holding up?

 

The grease I used is not really an option for people, it is Tribolube 64 RPC. It is a grease we use in the aerospace industry, unfortunately, the amount I used would cost the normal consumer between $10,000 and $15,000.

If you just replace it with any ordinary grease, it will work much better than the glue stuff that was in there from the start. Good Luck

 

barlowrs, I don't even want to know how you made off with $15,000 worth of grease.... ha ha

 

haha, well lucky for me, once it expires, we cannot put it on airplanes, however, it still works well enough for a winch! haha

 

Thanks for the tip Barlowrs. I'm almost about to pull the trigger on this winch

 

Nice Job/Good info!
XRC 8 working

 

you have 10-15k in your winch!??! just of grease!??!?! whollly f'n cow!

 

what the hell makes it so special other than it being airline grease?

 

yeah wtf

 

haha it is impregnated with teflon. esentially, in a aerospace application, it is used when VERY low friction coef are needed at cold temp. Typical grease gets thicker and creates more drag at low temps, this does not. It also has a very wide operating temp range. Basically, I had the oppertunity to get some since they were throwing it away, so I said why not..haha, works great!

 

^ got any extra?

 

X2

 

x3

i wanna do my xrc8

 

sorry guys, I just got lucky and found some before it expired (someone had made a mistake and ordered double)...typically we dont have ANY extra by the time the expiration date comes around (as you can imagine, that would be a financial mistake to let it expire).

 

Holy hell and I thought using discontinued Aeroshell 17 from my work in my 4 wheeler winch rebuild was bad ass.

 

subd

 

Well this thread needs an update! The new XRC Comp 9500 I bought off of Craigslist is a different gen than the pictures above, so here goes...

To take apart the gears, you must undo the winch by the two support pieces tying everything together. Once you remove the two allen screws and lift off the gear end, it will look like this.



The part you just took off looks like this.



Remove the black plastic ring and here is what you have. (A Tmax winch! )



After I unscrewed the 10 allen screws the cover was still sticking to the body, so I gave it a couple gentle taps and it came off.



Now the goey grease pictures!







Time to clean up the gears...






Then repack with good grease.

I also modified my gear selection switch because it was over engaging my gear set. This may not be necessary for you
I took a grinder to the edge of the selection switch's small cylinder that actually moves the gears. Remember that a little goes a long ways here.



Enjoy your winch!