Early maintenance I used waterproof wheel bearing grease on the wire rope to prevent rust and that seems to be working. For the crank mechanism I kept shooting Liquid Wrench white lithium grease into the gear box as best as I could. Then I'd work the crank back and forth (not hard) and eventually it started moving. I recall there was something else about the gear box, like it was trying to open when I was working the crank and I had to hold it closed or something. I don't recall what I did. The combination seemed to work.

I was also lucky that the spare was down to the ground when it froze. I was able to get the tire out of the way to work on the gear box. It was summer too, so I didn't have to do that in cold weather.