cleaning/torching winch brake bands?

[rcfra]

Hello all, my 450B has a 3325 winch that slips if pulling anything more than lighter dead logs. I can crawl forward, winch in, and repeat but its annoying and a time waste and I have a fair amount of logging to do in the coming weeks.

I drained a fair amount of leaked oil from the dry/brake side. I've cleaned out the housing but the brake bands have definitely been oil soaked.

My understanding is this is a common issue and the typical solution is to torch the brake bands to burn off the oil and then they are good until you have to do it again at a future time due to their common issue with leaking.

This might be a stupid question, but when people do this are they removing the brake bands from the winch before torching them, or doing it on the winch?

For removal is it as simple as unhooking the yellow springs and backing out the pin at the top of the bands to free it and slide it off? Anything else to be aware of during removal and reinstall?

Also, is there any value in replacing the blue shaft seal to help slow/prevent future leaks or is that not the likely cause?

[JWB Contracting]

Best to just fix your oil leak then have your band relined, should be less than $200. Have sanded, torched, ovened. But the oil keeps coming out of the band. When they are very saturated in oil, you can see the oil resurface in 5 minutes.

[rcfra]

Best to just fix your oil leak then have your band relined, should be less than $200. Have sanded, torched, ovened. But the oil keeps coming out of the band. When they are very saturated in oil, you can see the oil resurface in 5 minutes.

I like the idea of fixing the leak, but from the reading I've been able to find leaks sound like they are common due to poor seal engineering on these and fixing might not be practical. How did you find and fix the leak?

[Lavoy]

The only people torching brake bands are the ones who won't take the winch apart and fix it correctly. If the leakage was an issue from the day the winch was born, Deere would have fixed it a long time ago.
Same as steering clutches, I read tons of posts on oily steering clutches and all the band aid fixes for it. I have never had a steering clutch get oily again once I have fixed it correctly.
It was designed not to leak from the factory, properly repaired, it won't leak again.
Lavoy

[rcfra]

The only people torching brake bands are the ones who won't take the winch apart and fix it correctly...
It was designed not to leak from the factory, properly repaired, it won't leak again.
Lavoy

So do you have tips on finding the source of the leak, as I'm not seeing anything obvious now that it's cleaned up even when running it?

[B Town]

I would start with the small cylinder on the brake band actuator. Some of the evidence has been cleaned up, but I would start by rebuilding the cylinder.

[rcfra]

Not sure if I found a leak, I did put a new o-ring where the oil passage way goes from the winch housing through the cover to the clutch. I'm not sure if it fell off when I removed the cover or if the last person neglected to put one on but that could've been the source, hopefully, as nothing else showed any leakage while testing.

That all said, cleaning the brake liner with a torch worked very well. It takes some time, moving the flame to spread heat out and as it heats you can watch most of the oil come to the surface and burn off, probably a good 30 minutes, but when done it looked and felt dry. I reinstalled and tested pulling a big dead green blowdown and the brake held perfectly.