Took a bit, but made some progress on this used 8274 that I was thinking/hoping was in better shape than it turned out to be. I didn't inspect this enough, and although I got it pretty cheap, it certainly wasn't a great deal after all the new parts.....
Initially, it ran both directions, but you could tell it was a bit 'off'...and on the way home, it oozed out something that at one time was maybe the oil, but now was something that shouldn't be in the gearbox (water, oil, rust, dirt, grit, blood, syrup, barite etc). So first thing was to drain the gear box, and also realize it was leaking oil around a bad seal somewhere....as expected it was going to need to come apart for a good cleaning and a bit of maintenance etc.
Next was to take a look at the solenoids:
That lead me to want to check out the motor - seemed like there might have been more moisture than wanted....Getting the motor off was not trivial - it was seized to the bearing and I ended up having to separate the housing from the internal windings. Something ate up the splined motor shaft:
So it was time for complete disassembly:
The gears were mostly good - but some of them had some pitting etc, along with the lock plate. Basically, all the 'soft' and usable parts got replaced. It got a new motor, new bearings, seals and bushings, along with a good cleaning etc. Getting the motor onto the upper half, and prepping the lower half to put them back together:
The hard parts fully reconstructed.....No fancy new paint or clear - just clean and will look right on my old beat up CJ. I didn't replace the brake discs or the ball bearings between the brake plates - kind of wishing I did, although those can be accessed from the outside and do not need to disassemble to replace. It may still happen:
You can also see I am using the modern Albright Contactor in place of the 4 solenoids in the control box. I haven't decided exactly how I want to handle the control box. Obviously, it can go in front of the motor like OEM, or I am considering doing a remote mount where I would tuck it onto the inside of the fender under the hood (that is where the current Ramsey winch solenoid box is located). Kind of thinking relocating the box might help block a bit less air flow into the grill (also considering a sunk mount to help with that as well), Unfortunately, the old school solenoid control box doesn't fit the Albright contactor inside of it - its just too thick to reasonably fit. If I would have known that ahead of time, I could have ordered a complete new control box with the contactor and wires pre-installed etc. But now that I have the contactor, I can't seem to find just the new box. Anyway, I kind of like old school big W box - so I think I can re-fab the metal lower half to work. It'll probably go on the winch motor for now, and once I really get around to mounting it on something with wheels, I can determine exactly how to mount it.
