Noisy Warn winch

The subject = Warn x8000i.

A little background = Ive owned this winch for about 7 years with occational use. I bought it new. Its been on two different vehicles, its currently on my XJ. Its never been "under" water but has seen some mud and been washed a few times and of course, it lives outside. Ive never had any problems with it. I havent used it in several months.

The problem = The other day I put it to work pulling trees and bushes out of the ground. It seems much louder than I remember it being before. It makes a gravel or growling noise when spooling or unspooling under load or no load, basically any time the motor is turning. It does get louder under load though. It still seems to pull and operate smoothly, its just very loud as it does it. I dont recall the owners manual mentioning (if it does, Im sorry for being stupid about this) any kind of maintenance like lubing the gears or bearings or cleaning the contacts or anything. The only maintenance Ive done on it is lubing the cable and occationally unspooling it and respooling under a couple hundred pounds of load if it hasnt been used for a long period.

The question = Is there something about lubing the guts that I am missing, if so, is it something I can do without breaking it down into pieces?

Most Warns are sealed, not intended to be serviced outisde a shop, but the lube inside can still go bad. Shouldn't happen in 7 years, though, I wouldn't think - more like 20. I've got a Warn MX8000 that's 13 years old. It's definitely noisier than a new one, but it still works fine. I've seen some write-ups about disassembling winches and rebuilding them, and kind of have that in mind for mine in the not-too-distant future. It looks pretty involved, however - not a pop-it-open, lube and back on the trail by afternoon type job. There's a write-up online for a Warn xd9000i here.

They're supposed to take aeroshell 17 grease, which is discontinued. Personally, I don't have a great opinon on aeroshell 17, and would definatly recommend changing it a little more frequently than ever 7 years or so.

Whatever grease you choose to put back in, be sure it's an extreme-pressure grease, can withstand a broad temperature range (-73 to 147C is spec for 17) and has molybdenum in it... Aeroshell 33MS would be the avaliable closest choice.


Granted most people won't want to source aviation grease.