Posted by Sherman in Idaho [24.32.202.166] on Sunday, April 21, 2013 at 18:33:21 :
In Reply to: Re: Stuck Winch De-Clutch Lever posted by Jerry in Idaho [24.223.94.244] on Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 22:18:39 :
All the bigger winches on M35s, M54s, etc are enclosed as well. Is suspect it has more to do with safety regs and not having a jaw clutch anywhere anybody can get their fingers stuck in it. Of course they can still hurt themselves lots of other ways with a winch but they are intrinsic to the operation of a winch just like a saw blade has to spin and be sharp and there's no way to avoid that. There might also have been the thought that by enclosing the clutch, it would be less likely to get rusted in place. It obviously didn't work, but maybe it worked fine for the first 20 years of service life, which was more than the army ever wanted out of them.
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