Like most of us I use a winch to load and unload, mine is a typical 9500 lb unit. Anyhow this weekend it didn't sound right so today I pulled the end off the gear reduction side. there are a dozen metric allen screws,(4mm wrench) anyhow there wasn't but a drop of grease in there, most had turned to what looks like window putty. All those planitary gears were spinning around absent lubercation. So I packed it full of wheelbearing grease and put it back together. It didn't take but a 1/2 hour and the winch no longer sounds like a dog chewing on a bone.
And thats why I didn't win the feature Saturady, because my winch hit my tiffin valve and I lost all the fremont fostoria function. It was the no.16 trucks fault!