All right, here goes the next chapter.
I found a listing on craigslist for a 12,000lb Ramsey winch. I went to look at it, pulled the covers and examined the gears, negotiated a VERY apropriate price, and brought her home.
Story goes it was purchased by the guys grandfather "way back in the day", passed down to his dad but he couldn't get it to work right and tossed it in the back of the lawnmower shed in the 80's. He bought the property from his dad and cleaned out the shed. He hooked up the winch to a car battery and the motor ran but it wouldn't spool in or out.
After I got it home I had to pressure wash all the years of grime and grease that was caked all over the thing.
The tag read 9/78, the year I was born!
The gears were like new, I would venture to say it wasn't used more than a dozen times. All the rest of the abuse was only external on the cases, and the years of buildup from riding on or under a front bumper and getting kicked around a dirt floor shed it's whole life.
Complete teardown began.
I got all the housings bead blasted.
All of the mounting bolt holes were stripped out. Not hard to mess those up with cast aluminum. So I brought them to my friends at Dubois Machine Shop to drill them out square so I could heli-coil them.
Next step was paint prep. Here are the pieces all cleaned with paint thinner and ready to go.
I decided to go with Hammered style paint. I've never tried it before but I like the look.
I had a nice long conversation with the Ramsey tech guy. I gave him the part number on the bull gear and he verified that it was in fact an 8000lb winch. Ramsey still makes this model of winch, but they redesigned some of the internal parts back in the mid 80's. So some of the new stuff won't fit. I got the guy to dig up the ancient parts manual for the older style winch. He litterally had to go find it in an old filing cabinet in the back storage room lol. He graciously scanned a copy of the exploded view with all the old part number manifest to go along with it and emailed it to me a few days later.
I found out by cross referencing part numbers between the three different models (RE8000, RE10000 RE12000) that they were all EXACTLY the same winch, with only a few pieces changing between the three. The only difference between the RE8000 and the RE10000 is a different bull gear and worm gear. The only difference between the RE10000 and the RE12000 was a stronger electric motor.
My Blazer is pretty heavy, so I wanted to up the capacity of the RE8000 to the RE1000, and run it like that until the old electric motor goes out. If that happens I'll just order the higher output motor and install it on my winch and that will increase the capacity from 10000 to 12000lbs! So I called the tech guy back and asked if he had access to the old style bull/worm gear. He said they discontinued those parts back in the 80's when they redesigned the winch internals and the new stuff won't fit the older style main shaft.
So I went on a hunt just to see if I could find the matching bull/worm gear set. Sure enough I got luckey. After calling almost every ramsey dealer/repair facility in the country, I struck gold in a warehouse in New Orleans Louisiana of all places. They were actually just sitting there on the back shelf in a warehouse with an inch of dust on them. The guy said they have had them on that shelf for over 14 years (that's as far back as their computer system was installed). This warehouse survived hurricane Katrina! Boy did I feel lucky.
Here they are next to each other for comparison.
I ordered all new gaskets, bearings, bushings, seals, a few new springs, and a new neutral shift lever. That's why the winch wouldn't work because the neutral shifter was broken inside the winch and kept it from engaging the drum to the main shaft.
This is what the shifter slides back and forth, on the main shaft to engage with the drum to make it turn.
Final assembly.
