Jibes,
I think part of the issues with this conversion it that it would likely cost more than a decent in-expensive windlass. Many winches, including the one on my old CJ that I rebuilt have little capacity for line. The winch cable is small diameter and rusts quite easily and also tends to "meat hook". I would not doubt if these winches shared a similar motor design but these winches, at least the one I repaired had the motor on one end, and the reductions gears in the opposite end. the whole contraption was held together with a base plate and then some large draw rapds which held the motor end and gear end together.
In order to use this as an effecticve windlass the low capacity drum would need to come off and be replaced by a capstan that would allow tailing of the anchor rode. Unless you totally rebuilt the base plate and made adapter ears on both the motor end and the gear end to allow more rode I don't think you could get enough stretchy rode on there for anchoring in anything more than about 9-10 feet of water with no tidal range.. Even then you would also need to extend the diameter of the roller ends to keep the rode captive and not have it pinch between the drum and motor or gear end. Big ships, and even some schooners, use winch designs similar to this but the drums are HUGE!
With most of these winches they have high pulling power due to the gearing which is often in the other end of the winch.
With ANY electric windlass installation the cost of the windlass is often nearly matched with the wiring, installation and or batteries to get the power to the windlass. This would be no different with a Warn winch.
Could it be done? Sure, but would it cost less in the end and the long run? Perhaps not... Windlass motors are sealed and highly water resistant or water proof for a reason as boats often submerge the bow in salt water. My Warn was re-built because it was NOT waterproof, nor was the starter or electrical system on my CJ, which was also rebuilt..
