Posted by Jerry in Idaho [162.158.69.92] on Monday, October 10, 2016 at 13:20:46 :
In Reply to: LU4 Steel Worm Gear posted by Vaughn [199.27.128.179] on Monday, October 10, 2016 at 11:03:23 :
" These were made for the military to replace the bronze drive gear that constantly failed"
I have owned over 20 pto winches, Braden, Ramsey, Tulsa, Garwood, and have only had one bronze gear fail. That one was in an MU-2 that came from a former military base in Alaska. When I took the winch apart, the keyway in the bronze gear was so wallowed out, apparently from abuse by the previous owner(s), that the gear actually split in two after rolling over the key.
The LU-4 winches were pretty much exclusive to the M-37 trucks, no?
My cousin, who was in the Korean war, told me when they were bored they would take the trucks out and see what they would do...get them stuck, then go get something bigger to pull it out, usually getting it stuck....I wonder if the cables were used to jerk stuck vehicles with, which would certainly be hard on a bronze gear with a steel key passing through part of it.