HELP - Winch won't work now!!

So I bought a used Warn M8000 winch of someone and now it won't work. When I went to look at it, the guy used jumper cables and it worked just fine. Now, I have it finally mounted and tried to hook it up. I have the 2 battery cables connected. The original controller wiring quit working, so the original owner (not who I bought it from), wired a different remote that takes an additional wire to ground. I grounded that and no matter which direction I try to wind the winch, I just get clicking sounds from the solenoid area.

Does anyone know what to check? The only other thing I did was remove the power cable completely, and re-attach it. Also I tried it with the Jeep running thinking maybe my battery wasn't charged enough.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Scott

 

If you use a jumper AROUND the solenoid and the winch works, that will tell you if you have the POWER wires correct. Use a quality jumper cable to do this. If this works, the issue could be a faulty solenoid. If not, suspect your power wiring. Good luck.

 

I just came in from playing with the winch. I finally got it to run by putting power directly to where the power cable should go in the Solenoid control box and using the ground wire from the bottom of the motor. I had it hooked up to the battery in my other car with jumper cables. I had new power and ground cables made, but hadn't installed them. The power cable must be so far gone it wasn't a good enough of a connection. So, I think once I wire up the new cables I am good to go!!!

On a side note, my battery is dead now. I must have drained it trying to test out the winch, because even after it was attached to my car for a jump for a while, the voltage just goes to 3V once I crank.

So I need a new battery and then finish wiring and hopefully I am good to go!!

So, is it worth getting an OPTIMA battery, or just a good one from the auto parts store???

Thanks,
Scott

 

I work in a lead mine. We go through batteries like they are toilet paper (mainly big ones in heavy equipment). Being a supplier to battery manufacturers, I guess we get good prices. Anyway, up until six months ago or so we used Optimas for all of our small applications (Mules, Kubotas, pickups etc.) They seemed to hold up very well, but it seemed like that if you ever ran them completely dead (left lights on etc.) they were done for. For this reason our purchasing dept. quit them and went with something else. By accident ( after we quit getting them for replacements) I discovered that the fault was partly with our "smart" battery chargers. For some reason if you hooked them to a completely discharged Optima they will never start charging. If you briefly connect a normal lead acid battery to one while trying to charge it, the charger will kick in and go ahead and charge it up like normal. (I've had really, really dead "normal" batteries behave this way, but they usually recover enough after the load is removed that the chargers we have will go ahead and charge them without any extra help.)

Other than this surmountable issue, they seemed to stand up to the abusive environment of the lead mines very well. If something lasts well down there, it is usually indestructible in real life.

 

Story goes that Optma batteries are not nearly as good as they used to be.

A lot of people are going to Exide Orbital.At least that is what I've been tolds.

 

I have an Exide Orbital Extreme HD battery in my Jeep and love it. I did a lot of research before getting a battery because I wanted one that wouldn't fry from winching, and came out with the battery I have now. I bought it about 3.5 years ago, put it in the Jeep, and then worked on the rig for 3 years without ever driving or starting it. Finally got to the point of firing it up and figured "lets just see if it fires" and low and behold, fired after a revolution and a half, and battery was sitting for 3 years!! And where I live it gets to be close to 0*F sometimes in the winter and 105* in the summer. The battery also winches my rig great, too. So Exide Orbital Extreme HD all the way!!