by geddy's uncle » Sat Oct 02, 2010 3:59 pm
in this amount of time, the writeup seems to be gone, and the first link gave me a "404" reject, but, here's a bit of niftiness to make the windlass a bit more reliable.
When confronted with a thin-walled hex-drive windlass that starts to stretch, deform to roundness and become disappointingly disastrous when lifting your tire into place, it's an easy fix.
drop the tire, crawl under, remove the windlass's drive-shaft, and go in the garage.
Your neighbor's garage.
find his 3" long extension for the 1/2" square-drive. fire up his welder (if it's a 220V cracker-box type stick welder, about 50 or 60 amps will be way plenty. Pound the extension into the disappointing wallered-out rounded end, and weld'er solid.
When it's cool, go re-install it, put your tire in place, using his 6 or 7-inch extension and either his breaker-bar, or his ratchet. Later, when he's wondering WTF happened to some crucial components of his socket set, you'll have the confidence to know that your next tire change will be easy!