SuperMochombo
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- Albany, NY
With winter in full swing, I have been using my truck ('68 404 hard cab, radio box) almost daily for work on a big hobby farm on top of a mountain. The other night I went on an adventure down a road never traveled, and got myself good and stuck. Fortunately I was on a hill with big trees above me, so I tried to winch myself out.
The short story is it worked.
The long story is that I had only used my winch once before. It is a MB Type C winch. To my knowledge there are no English operation manuals for the Type C winch mounted on a 404. So last summer I had researched how to use the winch, found a few threads, and got it to work. Then immediately forgot how to do it.
Fast forward to a dark snowy night on a steep mountain logging road. I couldn't remember exactly how to use the winch but knew I needed it right away.This is what I discovered.
First, the Type C winch has essentially five controls: A big long lever on top that is connected to the big round brake on the front of the winch. We'll call that the brake lever. The second is the lever with a tab lock that has a pointer that switches between IN (EIN) and OUT (AUS), which I'm calling the engage lever. The third control is the PTO lever in the cab between the seats, and the fourth is the clutch pedal. There is also a knob on the lower left side that locks the drum.
So I jumped out of the truck, and remembering that the spool is a manual unwind spool, and noting the engage lever was pointing at OUT, I grabbed the cable and started dragging it up the hill, unspooling it. I completely forgot about the drum lock knob, which was screwed in tight. By the time I got the cable around the base of a big tree, I was sweating and panting like I had run a marathon. Took at least a half hour.
Now that I was hooked up, I tried to move the engage lever to IN. No dice. All told I climbed in and out of the truck at least 25 times trying my luck with this and that, until finally I yanked on the lever as hard as I could and it reluctantly went into the IN position. I later found that if the engage lever gave any trouble moving to the IN position, just unspooling the drum a little would do the trick.
So now I'm locked and loaded, and I climb back into the cab. Forgot the part about putting the gear shift lever in neutral between 5th and 6th gear, and just tried to depress clutch, engage PTO, slow release clutch. Motor would just bog, drum would not spin. In and out of the cab again another half dozen times, trying to move the brake lever and engage lever, until finally and suddenly with a bit of a bang, the drum started turning when I released the clutch, and the winch spooled me up to the top of the hill. WHEW! Thank god I got out of there because there was no spending the night on the side of the hill.
The cable did not wind up nice and neat, so the next day after re-reading the winch threads I had read in the summer, I decided to try to respool my cable neatly, and also use the winch enough to embed the operation in my long term memory.
Still overlooking the lock knob, I hooked to a tree and backed up until I had most of the cable out. Having learned the engage lever trick, I was able to easily move it from OUT to IN. Jumped in the cab and this time remembered to put shift lever between 5th and 6th gear. Clutch in, PTO lever engaged, and then....nothing. Drum wouldn't turn, truck would just bog. After a solid half hour of in and out, unspooling more cable, pulling hard at the cable while in the IN position, and at wits end, the drum refused to spool in. I was running out of time and had just decided to unspool the whole cable so I could drive away, and then suddenly it worked. Nothing I did differently, it just decided to start winding in at some point, this time without a bang.
So I tried to neatly wind my cable, and man what a pain. Tried from the drivers seat. No good. Then tried engaging the winch, jumping out of the truck and guiding the cable in then jumping back in to declutch in time. Also no good. Eventually I gave up and just wound it up like a ball of yarn. This is definitely a two person operation.
Got home yesterday, and today pulled the drain plug in the bottom of the winch and basically nothing came out. Turns out it had water in the bottom, which had frozen and must have locked the gears. When oil eventually came out it was textbook milkshake. You get a good view in the drain and fill plugs, and judging by the rust on the gears the water was about 2" deep. It got in through the vent behind/above the fill, which inexplicably came with a hose barb fitting and no cap. Has to be how the water got in. Now has a cap.
I propped a heat gun in the fill on top and after a few hours it had warmed up, melted the ice, and drained most of the liquids out. I sprayed a full can of PB blaster in the top, then a full can of WD40, then the heat gun on low for another hour letting everything drain completely. Then filled with 30 weight.
Then I spent a few hours again trying to neatly spool my cable. Winch worked flawlessly, unspooling way easy with the lock off (!!), and I had more success with a neatly wound cable, though I gave up short of perfection. And now, here's my take on pithy Type C winch operation instructions when mounted on the front bumper of a Unimog 404. For all those other guys out there with this set up, wondering how to use the winch.
With engine running at idle and warmed up:
1) jump out and loosen spool lock knob.
2) move engage lever to AUS
3) unspool cable and hook to whatever you are pulling on.
4) move the engage lever to EIN
5) move brake lever until perpendicular to centerline and brake is off
6) get in the driver's seat, depress clutch
7) put FWD/REV lever in the FWD position
put gear shift lever in neutral between 5th and 6th gear
9) release clutch, listen for change in pitch of idle, depress clutch
10) with clutch in, engage PTO lever
11) slowly release clutch while watching the drum. It will start winding in when the clutch is released. You can control the speed with the gas pedal or the hand throttle.
12) depress clutch to stop the drum turning, and disengage the PTO lever.
The short story is it worked.
The long story is that I had only used my winch once before. It is a MB Type C winch. To my knowledge there are no English operation manuals for the Type C winch mounted on a 404. So last summer I had researched how to use the winch, found a few threads, and got it to work. Then immediately forgot how to do it.
Fast forward to a dark snowy night on a steep mountain logging road. I couldn't remember exactly how to use the winch but knew I needed it right away.This is what I discovered.
First, the Type C winch has essentially five controls: A big long lever on top that is connected to the big round brake on the front of the winch. We'll call that the brake lever. The second is the lever with a tab lock that has a pointer that switches between IN (EIN) and OUT (AUS), which I'm calling the engage lever. The third control is the PTO lever in the cab between the seats, and the fourth is the clutch pedal. There is also a knob on the lower left side that locks the drum.
So I jumped out of the truck, and remembering that the spool is a manual unwind spool, and noting the engage lever was pointing at OUT, I grabbed the cable and started dragging it up the hill, unspooling it. I completely forgot about the drum lock knob, which was screwed in tight. By the time I got the cable around the base of a big tree, I was sweating and panting like I had run a marathon. Took at least a half hour.
Now that I was hooked up, I tried to move the engage lever to IN. No dice. All told I climbed in and out of the truck at least 25 times trying my luck with this and that, until finally I yanked on the lever as hard as I could and it reluctantly went into the IN position. I later found that if the engage lever gave any trouble moving to the IN position, just unspooling the drum a little would do the trick.
So now I'm locked and loaded, and I climb back into the cab. Forgot the part about putting the gear shift lever in neutral between 5th and 6th gear, and just tried to depress clutch, engage PTO, slow release clutch. Motor would just bog, drum would not spin. In and out of the cab again another half dozen times, trying to move the brake lever and engage lever, until finally and suddenly with a bit of a bang, the drum started turning when I released the clutch, and the winch spooled me up to the top of the hill. WHEW! Thank god I got out of there because there was no spending the night on the side of the hill.
The cable did not wind up nice and neat, so the next day after re-reading the winch threads I had read in the summer, I decided to try to respool my cable neatly, and also use the winch enough to embed the operation in my long term memory.
Still overlooking the lock knob, I hooked to a tree and backed up until I had most of the cable out. Having learned the engage lever trick, I was able to easily move it from OUT to IN. Jumped in the cab and this time remembered to put shift lever between 5th and 6th gear. Clutch in, PTO lever engaged, and then....nothing. Drum wouldn't turn, truck would just bog. After a solid half hour of in and out, unspooling more cable, pulling hard at the cable while in the IN position, and at wits end, the drum refused to spool in. I was running out of time and had just decided to unspool the whole cable so I could drive away, and then suddenly it worked. Nothing I did differently, it just decided to start winding in at some point, this time without a bang.
So I tried to neatly wind my cable, and man what a pain. Tried from the drivers seat. No good. Then tried engaging the winch, jumping out of the truck and guiding the cable in then jumping back in to declutch in time. Also no good. Eventually I gave up and just wound it up like a ball of yarn. This is definitely a two person operation.
Got home yesterday, and today pulled the drain plug in the bottom of the winch and basically nothing came out. Turns out it had water in the bottom, which had frozen and must have locked the gears. When oil eventually came out it was textbook milkshake. You get a good view in the drain and fill plugs, and judging by the rust on the gears the water was about 2" deep. It got in through the vent behind/above the fill, which inexplicably came with a hose barb fitting and no cap. Has to be how the water got in. Now has a cap.
I propped a heat gun in the fill on top and after a few hours it had warmed up, melted the ice, and drained most of the liquids out. I sprayed a full can of PB blaster in the top, then a full can of WD40, then the heat gun on low for another hour letting everything drain completely. Then filled with 30 weight.
Then I spent a few hours again trying to neatly spool my cable. Winch worked flawlessly, unspooling way easy with the lock off (!!), and I had more success with a neatly wound cable, though I gave up short of perfection. And now, here's my take on pithy Type C winch operation instructions when mounted on the front bumper of a Unimog 404. For all those other guys out there with this set up, wondering how to use the winch.
With engine running at idle and warmed up:
1) jump out and loosen spool lock knob.
2) move engage lever to AUS
3) unspool cable and hook to whatever you are pulling on.
4) move the engage lever to EIN
5) move brake lever until perpendicular to centerline and brake is off
6) get in the driver's seat, depress clutch
7) put FWD/REV lever in the FWD position
put gear shift lever in neutral between 5th and 6th gear9) release clutch, listen for change in pitch of idle, depress clutch
10) with clutch in, engage PTO lever
11) slowly release clutch while watching the drum. It will start winding in when the clutch is released. You can control the speed with the gas pedal or the hand throttle.
12) depress clutch to stop the drum turning, and disengage the PTO lever.