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I am definitely overthinking this but I am sure I have seen pics in some manuals where the cable is fed on from the bottom of the winch. I cannot find any decent info anywhere on the subject. I tried to access the pics here on the forum and it tells me I am denied? This is contrary to every winch I have ever dealt with in many years of towing and heavy rigging so I figured it best to ask. Mine is spooled on top.

Forward on the handle is wind in on my truck. (According to the dash plaque) That means it feeds from under the drum.
If it went the other way, it would cause issues with the brake.

That probably explains why the cross bar at the bottom of the winch is bent and destroyed. It is wound backwards which means the controls are backwards. When I got it there was an excess of cable hanging out and the disengage lever was broken in half but pointed in the engaged position. So I gently engaged it and let the clutch out and felt nothing so I had my wife watch the winch to tell me what was going on but since she had no idea what she was looking at she just told me nothing was happening. What was actually happening was it was unspooling but so slowly and with no load it just sort of loosened the cable on the drum. I reversed it and then it actually started pulling the cable in so this just confirms what you said. I wonder why they would do it this way?

If you would like to change the pull-in direction, that's easy enough. Remove the brake band housing and reverse the band...there are already holes for either direction.

PoW

PoW wrote:If you would like to change the pull-in direction, that's easy enough. Remove the brake band housing and reverse the band...there are already holes for either direction.

PoW

Good info to know, I just verified today with the missus watching the drum and me on the control that it is wound backwards. Do you know of a manual for these winches? I have not been able to find one. I have a second winch, that one does not have the "Braden" cast into the housing on it.

rickf wrote:

PoW wrote:If you would like to change the pull-in direction, that's easy enough. Remove the brake band housing and reverse the band...there are already holes for either direction.

PoW

Good info to know, I just verified today with the missus watching the drum and me on the control that it is wound backwards. Do you know of a manual for these winches? I have not been able to find one. I have a second winch, that one does not have the "Braden" cast into the housing on it.

TM 9-8030 Operation and Organizational Maintenance and TM 9-8031-2 Powertrain Body and Frame both have good info; TM 9-8031-2 has rebuilding instructions.

Sounds like your second winch is one of the import Braden copies.

That winch also came off of an M-37, it was a later year but I don't remember now what year. I will; have to look back through my posts and see if I can find it. Thanks for the manual numbers. I have all the digital manuals I can find but there are a few that are just not available in digital without paying. I have a major issue with that because that is someone getting rich on what is supposed to be free information. Those government manuals are NOT copywrite protected. I will buy a print version before giving someone money that they get over and over just for scanning their copy.

I started with the scanned versions on CD, but found them to be very poor reproductions. Many of the numbers, especially in the parts catalog, were incorrect or unreadable. Maybe the new scans have improved.

My experience is that the paper copies are much better. The original perfect bound format works, but for use in the shop, I like the ones that are spiral bound. They can lay flat on the workbench, and stay open to the page needed.

Agreed that the original content is not copyrighted, but there is value in someone's time to collect them and then have them reprinted or scanned. If all we had to use was original printed copies from the military, we'd be in bad shape both in terms of the condition of the ones that have survived, and of the quantity available. So I don't mind paying for someone's efforts to save the originals and make them available in usable quality and quantity.