# Farmi Winch pulls hard.



## scottn (Jan 22, 2009)

New to the forum, but liked what I have been reading...

I have a Farmi JL501. Great tool! When pulling cable out, a rapid pull causes the winch to whine and pull hard. I tried adjusting the break, but that does not appear to be the problem. The winch is relatively new, so I expect that there is some simple adjustment I can make. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.


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## 2dogs (Jan 22, 2009)

First off I would call the rep and speak to him re your problem. Are you pulling the cable out by hand or hooking it to your load and driving away? Or are you powering it out?


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## 371groundie (Jan 22, 2009)

check your manual on adjusting the clutch. i tried to adjsut the clutch on my 351p and wound it up to tight. as soon as i turned on the pto it would start winding cable. also had a squeak in the clutch before. so check the adjustment on the clutch.

thats what i can tell you without looking at it.


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## scottn (Jan 23, 2009)

I am pulling the cable out by hand.

The "squeak" sometimes occurs. I will try to make the clutch adjustment and report back next week. Are there clutch adjustments other than the two large nuts (front and back)?


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## 371groundie (Jan 23, 2009)

on my 351p the nut on the wood side of the winch holds the whole assembly in place. when i adjsuted the clutch i unscrewed the big nut on the tractor side and then turned little psuedo nut inside it. check your manual and if you lost it do as goggle search. ive found a couple dealers that have the manuals posted as PDF files.


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## scottn (Jan 31, 2009)

I worked with the clutch as well as the drum break, and neither of these are the problem. The cable pulls normal at slow speeds, but at a swift walk it begins to pull hard due to vibrations in the winch. If while vibrating the clutch rope is pulled, the vibrations (and resistance) stop just prior to clutch engagement.


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## 371groundie (Jan 31, 2009)

how old is your winch? squeaks that change when tourqe is applied kinda sounds like bad bearings? its a shot in the dark but try to follow this.

if you pull fast and hard, it could cause the reel to rock out of plumb if the bearings were bad. this would cause the part of the clutch plate that rocks towards the powered side of the clutch to partially engage. this would make it hard to pull, and might cause your sqeak. 

another shot it the dark, but is your cable run through the loop that has the brake pad on it, to keep reel from spinning too far? if you bought it used somone might not have restrung the cable correctly. the cable should come off the reel and to the outside of the little roller, then through the top of the winch. 

you might try having somone pull the cable out while you watch the internal goings on and see what you can see. 

keep us updated.


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## Mike Van (Feb 3, 2009)

:agree2: Sounds like dry bearings.


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## Urbicide (Feb 5, 2009)

I would call Northeast Implement, the Farmi distributor for the US. They are pretty good folks.

http://www.farmi.biz/index.html


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## scottn (Feb 6, 2009)

*Major Changes*

My winch is 6 month old (purchased brand new).

When pulling cable the cable spool (drum) would begin vibrating and causing much resistance.

I took the entire mechanism apart... the drum does not spin on bearings, but rather just two bushings (they were quiet dry by the way). The only bearings are on the ends of the axle and they provide roll in the horizontal direction, not perpendicular to the axle. There was slight wear on one bushing which allowed for some axle play. 

I live a little past the far end of nowhere, and going without the winch for weeks to a month plus is not an option. There is almost 4 feet of snow pack and frozen trails for about 6 more weeks. After that you can imagine how wet and soft it becomes.

I took the drum to a local machine shop and had a replacement bushing made. A big thank you to my friend whom had the part installed within an hour of me showing up. Some new grease and a bit of reassembly and the winch was back up and running. The halting vibrations are gone. The pull is a little stiff, and time will tell if that is due to 1) cold grease, 2) too tight of a tolerance on the bushing, 3) poor adjustments on my part.

Take home messages... I am a little surprised that the drum does not turn on something more fluid than bushing... I love the winch, and the reports I have heard about its quality are true, so I am much perplexed at why a brand new one would become non-functional so quickly... I am caught as I would like to take advantage of the famous farmi warranty, but to do so would be quite costly due to delays.


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## Mike Van (Feb 7, 2009)

Because they run at low speed, bushings are probably all they need. They do need grease though, as not much moves [for long] without it! Look at the pounding that backhoe/excavators take, they all run on bushings, not bearings. Glad you got it going -


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## 371groundie (Feb 8, 2009)

run it for now, send it back to farmi durring mud season.


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## scottn (Feb 13, 2009)

I missed the drum break release lever when replacing the cable. Once that was corrected the winch works like new with the new bushing.


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## 371groundie (Feb 14, 2009)

371groundie said:


> another shot it the dark, but is your cable run through the loop that has the brake pad on it, to keep reel from spinning too far? if you bought it used somone might not have restrung the cable correctly. the cable should come off the reel and to the outside of the little roller, then through the top of the winch.



who called it?


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## woodfarmer (Feb 15, 2009)

scottn said:


> I worked with the clutch as well as the drum break, and neither of these are the problem. The cable pulls normal at slow speeds, but at a swift walk it begins to pull hard due to vibrations in the winch. If while vibrating the clutch rope is pulled, the vibrations (and resistance) stop just prior to clutch engagement.



i've had mine for 8 years and that to me is how it works


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## scottn (Feb 21, 2009)

woodfarmer said:


> i've had mine for 8 years and that to me is how it works



Do the vibrations create enough resistance that the cable can not be pulled until you stop and start again?

FYI... the vibration problem was the dry, worn bushing... missing the break when replacing the cable was a human error mistake, but much more easily fixed.


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## woodfarmer (Feb 21, 2009)

i don't know if its really a vibration as much as the cable gets wound around itself sometimes when hauling in a load that i have to give it a real hard pull and have even had to anchor to a tree and drive ahead to get the cable out


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## scottn (Feb 21, 2009)

I sometimes have the same issue, but only when I snag something while pulling in a load. The snag causes the load to stop, the winch to bind down hard and the cable to tighten upon itself. When I then go to pull the cable out by hand, and I reach the point of the previous snag I then need to unbind the cable as you have described.


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