Cooked My Winch Today!!!

[Weatherman]

OK, not some glamorous pull out on the trail... I was pulling down a 45' cedar tree in the backyard of my mother's house. Thought I'd drive down with the exp, pull this tree back that was leaning over the neighbors house, and be done pretty quick - no such luck. It was pouring down rain, wet as could be (water standing in the whole back yard), but soil conditions to pull a tree. OK, so I'm pulling it with the winch, not much load on it at all, then it stops and I look over, and the solenoid pack's smoking!!! I wound up just locking the cable and pulling it down with the exp in reverse, which did the trick - just more frustrating. It's a MileMarker E9000. Here's pics - I pulled the solenoid pack apart this evening. There's three very small gauge wires running from the remote control to the solenoid, and the small blue one in the picture is toast. I'm not sure what happened though - there wasn't much load, things weren't hot, and I hadn't pulled for that long. Anyhow, there shouldn't be any load on these small wires at all. I pulled the cover off and jumped the solenoid terminals with a small 18-gauge test lead, and spooled the cable back on with no trouble, so everything still works OK, except the remote. All I can figure is the small blue wire rubbed against the copper bar bridging the solenoid and the on/off switch, and got cooked - but that's not supposed to happen! I'm thinking I might just rewire it with a lot of heat shielding, instead of sending it back to MM cause I may have the same thing happen in the future. Any ideas folks?

 

[Tilt168]

suscribing...sry i cant be of more use but i just want to see the end results

 

[IZwack]

I dont have the MM E9k so I dont know how its configured or layed out but if the solenoid housing is exposed to wet environment, it will die (short/arc). You need to keep the solenoids dry at all times. Most people relocate their solenoids to the inside of the vehicle or put it inside another sealed box.

Her'es my brother's handy work on the center console and the solenoid box

 

[AMMO_HOOAH]

I dont have the MM E9k so I dont know how its configured or layed out but if the solenoid housing is exposed to wet environment, it will die (short/arc). You need to keep the solenoids dry at all times. Most people relocate their solenoids to the inside of the vehicle or put it inside another sealed box.

Her'es my brother's handy work on the center console and the solenoid box

OMG that is freakin awesome! I'm definitely doing that once I get a winch.

 

[Weatherman]

I was playing with my winch this weekend and realized I never tied up this thread - figure I should to clear it up for people...

Turns out it was my own stupid mistake. I later found out that I had snagged the remote cable under the drivers front tire, and sliced the remote cable against the bumper, which grounded the hot wire to the truck and cooked the guts of the remote cable all the way through to the solenoid pack. Didn't hurt anything but the remote cable and its connector. Didn't realize it for a while, but I rewired it and it's good to go now.

So... My dumb fault - not MileMarker's...

Ben

 

[DeRocha]

Thanks for posting the rest of the story.. It definitely makes more sense than having it burn up for no good reason..

 

[Iceking007]

Yah good you got that all cleared up and out of the way and its working now.... I would say rewire it yourself if you know what your doing... we can rebuild it better than the cheap out man. any day cuz we can upgrade parts then we know how it works for when it fails out in the field and at least you might be able to get home lol!!