Modifying a Winch Truck Winch

While pondering casting and cutting a lot of parts to build our own winch, we came across an old 1950’s “White” truck winch in the 15 to 20 ton range for $600. We looked at a couple of others but this one was not frozen up, moved smoothly and had recently been in operation. But it was seriously ugly and beat up. An two great things about this winch was that it is it has a dog clutch that lets the spool free wheel. A brake on the spool so the spool and any load it has can be locked, and then the dog clutch can be disengaged and the winch motor can then power capstans added to the ends of the drive shaft. And finally it is a worm drive winch with a 29:1 reduction and worm drives by their design lock the load in place. So when the motor stops the spool will not move even when it is loaded. The down side is that the brake, capstans, and clutch control arm are all missing. And the brake collar that is the surface used by the band brake was badly bent from years a abuse. So the first order of business was to rebuild the brake surface.

MIG Brazing

MIG Brazing the brake surface, then cutting it round again, and repeat until the surface is uniform

MIG Brazing is not a common process as most people have oxygen acetylene torches so they learn traditional brazing. But I got a crash course in MIG Brazing from a technician at our local AirGas welding supply store and it’s a great way to go if you already have a MIG welder.

Silicon Bronze wire will cost you around $10 a pound. We use .035 and .045 with 100% Argon cover gas. Argon/He is recommended but 100% Argon works fine. It’s a stiff smooth, wire so it has no problems feeding through the same umbilical and gun you use for steel wire.

Getting the settings right on our Hobart Iroman 210 was a breeze. Just turn the heat down. Keep in mind that you are brazing, not welding. The wire is going to melt and spread across the surface and pile up. It’s not going to dig into the base metal like welding. Getting our Lincoln Invertec power supply and Miller X-Treme suitcase welder to work took a lot of fiddling. For .045 Silicon Bronze wire the settings that worked were to switch the suitcase to “Soft Start” and 195 inches per minute feed and set the Lincoln to GMAW at 200 amps CC with positive to the wire. Preheating the parts is recommended but I and others have skipped the pre-heat with no short term problem.

Woodruff Keys

The drive shaft uses woodruff keys. But really big woodruff keys. That turn out to be a good thing because I discovered that I can cut large keys slots with a grinder and the keys are not difficult to make with a lathe and a few other tools. A mill would do a better job of cutting the slots but besides being cheap, we are also looking for acceptable methods for making repairs on a boat with the resources available to us, and we think it’s better to learn and practice the skill now.

Tubing and Flat Bar Roller for Making a Brake Band

Our winch did not have a brake so we are making one which required making a brake band so we picked up a tubing bender from Harbor Freight aka “Horrible Fright” and got it done.

Band Brake

After looking at pictures of winches, we copied the simplest design we found. This brake will be used much like a parking brake. So choose a brake lining that is a woven material designed for holding power more so that smooth braking. And Tulsa Brake and Clutch had a jig to drill the holes along with the rivets and rivet gun so we had them install the pad at the reasonable price of $75.

Rode Aka: Rope for the Anchor

3/4 general purpose chain, Grade 30. Working Strength 10,600 lbs. Breaking Strength : 42400 lbs. 628 lbs/100ft 3/4 in steel cable. Working Strength 9,520 lbs. Breaking Strength: 47,600 lbs. 104 lbs/100ft 7/8 in Polyspec Working Strength ??? lbs. Breaking Strength: 50,000 lbs. 24 lbs/100ft 3/4 in 12 strand Dyneema Working Strength ??? lbs. Breaking Strength: 58,000 lbs. ?? lbs/100ft

Aft Winch

Many thanks to Brandon for bringing us a second winch. Smaller and just right for some serious pulling power on the aft deck. This winch has a 5″ diameter drum 14 inch flanges, 12 inches apart, capable of holding 100′ of 1″ line. The reduction ration is 23:1.

Build a Winch from Scratch

Brent Swain has a design for a simple anchor winch in his book, and it’s a perfectly good design for the most cursing boats but as RV Seeker is more work boat than cruising sailboat, I want a winch that has a few more capabilities, but I still don’t want one of the fully electric or hydraulic commercial units you see on trawlers. Besides, we can’t afford one of those anyway. Step #1 Get an Example

Out in my front yard was an example of a two speed manual trailer winch that will serve as a model for our anchor winch. The handles shaft can slide sideways when the latch on the left side is up. The small gear on the handle’s shaft is either neutral, high speed or low speed. Spool gear: 42 teeth, Jack shaft gear; sm: 14, lg: 26. Crank: 9

A ratchet pawl on the far side prevents backwards travel.

The crank handle shaft can slid sideways when to lever on the opposite side is lifted.

The handle shaft is slid to the center position so the gear on the handle shaft is not engaged. This is the neutral position.