winch rebuid question

[Ian2011]

So I had major difficulty engaging and disengaging my cheap Chinese winch after a stint of not actually having to use it to recover Toyotas recently, pulled it apart today to find that all the grease etc was still good but the outer gear that engages/disengages will not move unless tapped with a fair amount of force. It rotated no problem when sooling the drum manually but will not slide to lock up the gears with the drum gear.

Is it generally easy to get the gear to move, should I be able to move it when it is disassembled by rotating the lever?
There is some minor scoring in the casing but not what I would consider enough to cause it not to move.

All help appreciated

[Drewboyaus]

Photos please mate. That will make diagnosis much easier.

[NP99]

Just because it's not a warn doesn't mean it's no good....:)

[Ian2011]

Here is some pictures of the gear in question

[Ian2011]

It has been a good winch over the 3 years I have had it, if I had to go for a cheaper one again I probably would.

[Drewboyaus]

It's not the same as mine internally but I would consider pulling that outer gear out and giving it a good clean and grease if that's where your problem is. That bit is similar to mine.

[threedogs]

Ditto pull it apart as much as you can, re-assemble with kid gloves
plenty of waterproof grease etc

[Ian2011]

Just wanting to make sure that the gear is actually supposed to slide along the full length of the body before I took to it with a bit more force, it is very tight so I'm guessing some hidden corrosion behind it.

[Drewboyaus]

Mine is quite a tight fit to get in and out but it is an x9 superwinch, so is a bit different. There's a thread on here about the rebuild with a bunch of photos that might help but I'm on the mobile so is tough to search. Try Superwinch as a keyword search.