Broke the u-joint but the bolts that hold the straps for the u-joint broke off in the yoke so i gotta try and get those out lol least its not as bad as i initially thought! Gonna drop transmission this weekend and rebuild it and fix the u- joint.

 

Those yoke bolts should be fairly painless to drill out.

Josh, that's quite some damage done to winch, hopefully you can get a new one.

 

Holly Broken Winch Joshman

It sure looks to me like it was the case of the winch that failed yanking the spool out. Though I'm sure the bending of the mounting contributed to the case failure. Sound about right, I'm curious.

People are really wondering about those harbor freight winches, that's quite the failure that people should know about.

Edit, is the base of that mounting 1/8th or 3/16?

Edit2, I looked up that receiver mount and you might have a problem. It's only rated for 9000lbs http://www.harborfreight.com/hitch-r...hes-69106.html Harbor Freight is great about returns but if they get to asking you might have a problem.

 

no no you dont need to drop tranny..

easy outs and a drill, spray a penetrant or lubricant on it the night before.

 

Cirrus, he might just be aiming at a rebuild since he needs to work down there anyways. When I rebuilt my trans, I did the u joints as well. he might doing similar.

 

yeah, i noticed that when i looked it up online, but its rating was nowhere on its packaging. it was a direct bolt-up to the 12k, but was definately underbuilt - and the welds holding the plate to the tube had no penetration on the tube. the plate warped, the weld tore halfway down one side, and the extreme twist on the winch case as a result of that, caused the winch case to break.
for what its worth, the winch was on its second layer of cable, which according to its label is capable of pulling 9550#. that means the plate was rated within 10% of its breaking point, which is a huge safety problem!

it is my opinion that the winch would have been just fine pulling its entire rating if it was mounted to a suitable surface, and i probably should have stopped when the plate tweaked just a tiny bit, before it really turned ugly.

harbor freight gave me no trouble at all. i walked in with the remains of the winch and its mounting plate in a shopping cart, the cashier looked at me and said "what did you do this time josh?", i grabbed a new winch, and his manager took care of me. it helps that i'm on a first-name basis with over half the employees there, so even though i didn't have a reciept, i walked out with a brand new winch and a refund for the mounting plate.

 

and today i had even more fun. i was working down in seattle, drove away for a few miles, stopped in some little parking lot to make some phone calls, went to leave and realized that i was at a terrible angle and would take up all 3 lanes of the street trying to turn right out of there, so backed up to get a better angle, and found a large invisible post right behind me. the left end of my bumper was already missing its brace cause it got destroyed when the PO did the same thing. heres a couple pics of the damage https://www.dropbox.com/s/joowufkmue...2015.33.26.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5thnbeopi...2015.33.32.jpg so tonight i did what i could to straighten it out, and it came out about like this https://www.dropbox.com/s/gn54kasgtd...2022.32.31.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/c4l6j056nn...2022.32.47.jpg so yeah, that kinda sucks.
i went to lynnwood to look for a good used bumper for it, but all they had were the little smooth ones, or one step bumper that was chrome with the black plastic over it. i don't think i could do a nice job of having my lights cut in through either of those, so does anybody here have a good rear bumper for a van of my era?

 

Does it have to be van, I got a pickup one.

 

Vans have a different bumper than pickups. I think I have a spare pickup one too, but they're different in the frame width and lines around the body. Thanks anyway

 

I am going to do a rebuild on the trans cue to the fact that I lost reverse earlier in the week and second gear kinda slips sometimes.
GruesomeJeans you are correct! its one less thing I gotta undo to get the trans out lol

 

Tumwater I had the same idea. My u joints were messed up and my trans was having a lot of issues so I pulled that and had it rebuilt then did the u joints.


Josh that really sucks, it wouldn't be possible to fix it by welding right? It looks like a lot of damage done so replacing it might better but if you can't find one, what about fixing it?

 

oh you are rebuilding the tranny... I got it now. lol

I hope you have a warm and dry garage. Its nasty out there today.

 

It is quite damp out. I was going to poke around with my brakes to see if I could get them to work right, the truck plus real hard to the left when I apply the brakes hard but it straightens out a second later, almost like the left is applied first.

 

might just need to bleed them

 

Eh I'm not sure, we bled the rear drums when I got done putting them together. That's when I found out that the small front reservoir on the master cyl is for the rear brakes. Me and my step dad were pumping the brakes and taking the blender screw all the way out and we couldn't figure out for the life of us why they were not letting fluid out. turns out here was no fluid in it... DOH! After that we bled them properly and now the brakes start working as soon as my foot hits the pedal. I think the passenger side just needs to be adjusted out a little more. That side had "New" brake shoes but might have been wore down a tiny bit more than the driver side which had unused shoes. I was told by my brother that if you drive in reversed at about 5 mph and hit the brakes with good pressure, that will use the auto adjuster to adjust them out. If not, I will need to pull the wheel off.