Dan,
Sounds like a cheap ChinaWinch has struck again. I have one languishing in the garage that had no roller fairlead but only a oblong hole as the fairlead and it cracked the outer cast pot metal frame on the first pull. The problem is, almost all winches are now made in China, even Warn. I've had seven winches on my 4x4's and have used a winch for various reasons with maybe 500 pulls over the years. I used my Warn 8K until I wore out the tiny spur gear at the bottom inside that rolls the drum, with maybe 300 pulls until there were no teeth left. Some pulls were very complicated during jeep extractions. During one pull, I pulled the front bumper right off my Land Cruiser. Oh, well.
From your description, I would try this:
1. You need an anchor point. Industrial strength glue a very large heavy duty eye bolt (with the eye turned perpendicular to the pull direction) or a bolt and ring in an 8" deep drilled hole in the concrete floor like a cleat. Close as you can to the floor and the back wall. Put this in a place where it will self adjust to the wander of the trailer when it rolls. If this is too much stress on the trailer drop wheel, then get a heavier duty trailer caddy with a ball and two wheels.
2. Attach a snatch block to the eye bolt.
3. Use the winch on your truck and run the cable (steel wire rope is fine for your needs) under the trailer and thru the snatch block and back to the hitch of the trailer. Carefully take out the slack.
3. Start pulling the cable in with the Winch. Make sure you have your signals straight with your spouse, either hand signals or voice. I yell, "Hoap" when I want the winch to stop when Jeanie is operating the winch and i'm the operation manager.
4. If this is the only time you need a winch you don't need much of one. A 4K or 6K winch should be good enough. Maybe even a 3K pound. With a snatch block you will almost double the load you can move and half your line speed.
5. If the wire rope gets all tangled up just make sure you're not befouling anything and finish the pull. Then unwind the rope and reel it back on moving from side to side keeping the slack out and the each wind tight up against the last wind.
In our last home in La Crescenta before retiring to the West Slope, I had an elevated 10'x20' pad poured on which to store my car trailer. L.A real estate being as precious as it is I figured I could make something work. With a lot of effort i could get my 19'x7.5' w car trailer on the pad, zig-zaging around obstacles but I wanted to park my CJ8 rock crawler on the trailer also, kind of double decking. The woe was the trailer was facing the wrong way to drive the jeep up and on. Hmm? I installed a trailer ball on the rear of the car trailer (4" heavy angle iron with a hole for the ball; two, 3/4" bolts) and used my tow bar on the jeep to steer the trailer into position on the narrow slab. It worked way beyond my dreams, the thing rolling along on the drop wheel. You could turn the thing on a dime worming your way down the steep driveway. With two axles it tended not to bob. Then I reversed the jeep, put down the ramps and drove right on the trailer (chocks on every wheel ) all stacked next to our garage. People who looked at the stack wondered how I got the trailer in there backwards as the tongue hung out there in space at the far end of the slab.
Good luck.
jefe
