Gearmatic 8A winch for 1010c

[John1010c]

Gentlemen,

I have a John Deere 1010c with a gearmatic 8a winch on it. I've rebuilt the winch but am having quite a the time getting it adjusted. I have some questions for y'all. I put new cylinders on both sides of the controller. On the brake side the piston did not have the hole the manual mentions. Is this a problem ? I was told only the clutch one were available but to use it on both sides.

Where and how exactly are you bleeding the system ? Where the line attaches to the swivel on the side of the cover plate ? Do you just crack open the fitting and work the handle back and forth till no bubbles come out ?

Basically what's happening is when I try to use or test the winch at this point with the PTO engaged and I pull back on the control handle the drum barley turns or just tries to turn . The control handle is pretty hard to pull back too.

Any input would be greatly appreciated...

[JDCrawlerdog3]

John,

I rebuilt the master control (x-710) for my Gearmatic 8A winch several years ago, and may have had the same issue you are having.

After putting things back together, everything worked fine on the clutch side, but is was apparent that the brake cylinder was not getting any brake fluid past the plunger in the controller, and so there was no fluid getting to the brake slave cylinder on the winch. I had used two identical rebuild kits, one for each cylinder. I later learned that clutch cylinders are the only rebuild kits available. There are no brake cylinder rebuild kits. The old brake cylinder in the controller had a plunger with a hole through the center. The new cylinder rebuild kit's plunger did not, and that was the issue.

Several folks said that the rebuild kits are correct and that there is a small hole in the cylinder that allows fluid to get behind the plunger. There is a hole in the clutch cylinder, but not on the brake cylinder. I checked an old controller I had and it was identical, no hole in the brake cylinder. My solution was to clean up the old plunger and install a new o-ring seal. I reassembled and bled the system and it worked as it should.

Specific to bleeding, there should be a small screw at the top of the brake cylinder - that is the bleed screw (#113 in the manual). It might be possible that the brake cylinder on your controller has been change at some point and replaced with a clutch cylinder, which has no bleed screw.

There may be others on the board that can chime in regarding the hole vs. no hole in the plunger. My guess is that it was a progression in the Controller's design and may be part of the evolution to the Gearmatic 19. Looking at the 19 controller diagram, it is clear that the later controllers used identical brake and clutch cylinders.

The controller handle should move freely back and forth. The push rods for the clutch and the brake can get corroded, including the pivot shaft. Might be worth pulling things apart and make sure things are not corroded and that they are loose.

Hope this helps.

Andrew

[John1010c]

Andrew, thank you very much for your response. I have been talking with a couple of guys on another blog and seem to be making some progress. I am not rulling out I don't have control issues. Right now what's going on is with the engine running and you try to place the handle in the full release position the drum starts to turn again. I have new bands and regret not having the drum turned but it wasn't that bad. I don't have the cable installed yet. Should I install it and try letting it burn in a little or should I try to slack off the clutch bands ? One more thing is I can not get the feeler gauge to slip all around between the drum and clutch band. It i guess has some high spots.

Going back to the controller, one issue we discovered was I had the lines crossed. I had them right when I originally made them up but got some bad info from someone and they convinced me to swap them. Now they are back right and the handle is easier to move. Another issue is I had the brake band adjusting tube too tight. I couldn't get the handle to go fully into that full release holding position. I have to back it off 4-5 turns but it works smoothly now.

[JDCrawlerdog3]

John,

My suggestion would be to get the clutch band adjusted as close as possible before using it with a load. 5 or 6 pieces of broken hacksaw blades placed between the band and the drum around the circumference of the clutch band is a method that might help. Essentially multiple feeler gauges that will help to center/align the clutch band within the drum a little better than a single contact point with one feeler gauge. Worth a try.

Andrew