If you have a winch that is quite hard to pull the rope/wire out when you are trying to free wheel it the problem is that if you have not ever pulled it apart then it could be the grease that was used when it was first setup which most of the time is a thick heavy grease that breaks down quite quickly & most of the time they pack the gearbox with more than it needs,

From what i have read from doing some goggling is that the best thing to do is pull gearbox off your winch strip it out clean every thing to make sure that you get all the old grease off of & out of it then use a molybdenum grease as it is a lighter but sticker grease that can with stand the temperatures that the gearbox can produce.

As yet i have not striped my winch down well i have taken a look in there & whipped some of the old grease out & yes it did make a difference to the free wheeling but i will have to get to & strip it right down & re grease it but it just takes so much the get the winch out from the Bull Bar so it will have to wait.