I ride with people all the time that have winches that do not work properly. For you guys that need to work on yours but are hesitant to disassble the winch, I just want to assure you that any idiot(Excluding TexMud) can rebuild a winch. For the most part most people just need to clean the mud out of the gears. I will go through the process.

1) Remove the left side of the winch... the part with the motor by removing the allen head screws the are located close to the winch cable. This will allow you to remove the gear closest to the motor... just clean it with a slovent, dry it and regrease. Then remove the two bolts on the end of the motor. Take a scoth bright and clean up the contact surfaces on the motor (they are copper and easy to recognize.) There is no need to go into too much detail... it is self explanatory once you get into it... When you are done with this half of the winch, reassemble it before starting on the other half. This will make sure you do not get confused on the placement of the gears.

2) Diassemble the other half, just like before. Do not force the gears as you may damage the housing. This side will be muddier than the other. Once you have removed the gears, pay special attention to cleaning out the freespool lever. (Any mud in this will cause it to jam and it is usually the problem when a winch gets mud in it) Grease and reassemble. The shaft has to be reistalled when you put the two sides of the winch back together, and the spring on the shat goes toward the motor side of the winch.

Hope this helps someone...

Honda rules!!

GrassHopper