I’ve spent the last three days rebuilding my winch! It’s a Champion C9500EWX and I was quite surprised at the weekend when it stopped working being only 13 months old. The solenoids were clicking away as they should, but there was no movement in the motor. I dismantled the motor and discovered it had been holding about ½” - 1” of water. I spoke to Winch Solutions the UK supplier and they were very helpful with their advice.It transpires that the water gets in via a plastic seal and then through the bearing at the spool end. The plastic seal is a very strange design and is more of a gap filler rather than an actual seal. It has a slot in the bottom of it, I presume to allow water to drain away, but the gap was full of grease and was not allowing any water to drain and any water built up behind the seal and then seeped into the motor housing through the main end bearing. The brushes in the motor were well stuck in their housings with rust. I managed to clean and dry all the internal parts and put a very thin coating of Waxoyl on the brush housing to hopefully prevent any rusting again in the event of water getting in again. I also drilled and tapped a M6 hole in the bottom of the housing and plugged it with a bolt to enable it to be drained if water still finds its way in rather than removing the motor assembly every time it gets a soaking.I also decided to check the gearbox side if the winch and again, it has a plastic seal which had its drain hole blocked with grease and water had found its way in there too! I stripped and cleaned all the gear parts and packed it with fresh lithium grease. The whole thing was reassembled and I kept the grease away from the seals and hopefully the drain holes will not get blocked again. I refitted it back onto the Jeep and it’s now working fine. It’s also a lot quieter with the amount of grease I’ve packed into the gearbox.Here are some photos I took of the mess in the motor!
