I got a non-working WARN M-8000 winch for $75

EarlDixson

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Sep 25, 2019
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Northern Indiana
I had no idea what condition it was in except it was dirty and the steel cable had been wound improperly and had dug into the crossbars. I've never owned a winch but I knew the reputation of the WARN M-8000 so I figured it would be worth the $75. I didn't take any pics of it initially but here's what we found when we opened it up.
IMG_20200204_160329_8 .jpg

Inside the gearbox. Water, rust, grit.
IMG_20200204_155914_7.jpg

Rust inside the motor.
IMG_20200204_154111_3 (1).jpg

Dried mud inside the motor. Ball bearings in the motor felt gritty.
 
Looks like a fun restoration! I have an M8000-S but I have never taken it apart. Cool to see the inner workings (or not workings) 😉

Best of luck to sorting it out!
 
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I rebuilt a XD9000i that I bought for $100 that needed a motor and some TLC. There are a couple helpful write ups on rebuilding Warn winches, I'm pretty sure one is the M8000, though the gear boxes are the same or at least very similar. I know the gearbox looks bad but I think you'll find its not as bad as it seems, the motor.....maybe have a motor shop look at it. I'll post limks if i can find them.
 
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I'm skipping ahead here because I have no pics of actually putting it all back together. We laid it all out in the order it was removed and then cleaned the assemblies and replaced them in reverse order. You can see the drum has been painted and I bought an aluminum solenoid mounting bracket to move the controls to the top above the drum.
IMG_20200603_114346_2.jpg


Everything bolted right up, no surprises.
IMG_20200603_133026_5.jpg
 
Gasket set, synthetic rope, mounting plate and fairlead all came from Amazon.
IMG_20200603_161425_6a.jpg


Winding the rope on just hand tight. The two bolts each side going thru the factory hooks in this picture are the mounting bolts for the whole assembly to the frame. I bought half-inch longer bolts so I could put the hooks back on.
IMG_20200603_164144_1.jpg
 
And there it is. The finished product.
IMG_20200605_003540_461.jpg


I meant to say, we took the motor apart and the bearings were VERY gritty when spun. After cleaning they felt fine but we replaced them anyway. Overall I don't think this winch was abused the way I expected when I bought it. I think it was only slightly used but was either left partially submerged in muddy water or maybe was used in muddy water and not cleaned out afterward. Now that I know how easy it comes apart I'll be cleaning and greasing the innards whenever I use it in water.
 
I'm in the process of replacing the grease in a smittybilt xrc9500 and now that I know how much work it is I would feel a lot better having a fresh Warn at the end of the process instead of still having a smittybilt.
 
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I'm in the process of replacing the grease in a smittybilt xrc9500 and now that I know how much work it is I would feel a lot better having a fresh Warn at the end of the process instead of still having a smittybilt.
Is it more complicated than the Warn was? I think I can clean and re-grease the gearbox with the winch still mounted on the Jeep.
 
Is it more complicated than the Warn was? I think I can clean and re-grease the gearbox with the winch still mounted on the Jeep.

The screws that hold the gearbox on are hidden by the drum, so the drum, motor, and gearbox have to be separated and at least the gearbox end has to be unmounted, which means I had to pull the bumper to access the mounting bolts. I left the motor end mounted.

That and they put SO MUCH GREASE inside that I've probably got 2 hours in cleaning it up, including a lot of brake cleaner, scooping and scraping with small tools, wiping with rags, a berryman's chem dip and I finally just hit it with a power washer. The planetary's still have some bits of grease hiding in their nooks but I'm not putting any more time into it. I'll be greasing it back up and putting it back together later today.
 
I'm in the process of replacing the grease in a smittybilt xrc9500 and now that I know how much work it is I would feel a lot better having a fresh Warn at the end of the process instead of still having a smittybilt.
Did you have any real problems? I have the same winch. I dont think the PO did any maintenance on it. I plan on taking it apart before winter. Right now I can get it into free spool mode.
 
Did you have any real problems? I have the same winch. I dont think the PO did any maintenance on it. I plan on taking it apart before winter. Right now I can get it into free spool mode.

no real problems. I could get it into free spool mode but once there, it took everything I had to pull it out. Both feet on the bumper pulling with all my might I could get it to come out at about an inch per second.
 
I'm skipping ahead here because I have no pics of actually putting it all back together. We laid it all out in the order it was removed and then cleaned the assemblies and replaced them in reverse order. You can see the drum has been painted and I bought an aluminum solenoid mounting bracket to move the controls to the top above the drum.
View attachment 183072

Everything bolted right up, no surprises.
View attachment 183073

Where did you order that solenoid bracket from? Thanks
 

VERY nice, even if they don't know how to spell "Flimsy"! That REALLY beats the stock setup - my solenoids were mounted over the drum with the noted "flemsy" setup that had the mounting bolts digging into my expensive TRE line; so I reversed the mount so the 'noids were over the motor. That was OK, this is better, so I ordered one myself. Price was reasonable and for once, so was the shipping.

Thank you! {BOW HERE}
 
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