Wednesday, Apr 27, 2011 at 20:43
Well I finally managed to educate myself in the mysterious world of electricity and get the winch going.
I have to say the back up from Warn in the US was great, especially considering the winch was made in 1992 and the solenoids are no longer available through Warn. Despite that they emailed me circuit diagrams, service manuals, solenoid specs and websites where to obtain after market solenoids. The people at Ateco in
Sydney were also most helpful in their advice and finally I was directed to Duncan Scott at Macquarie 4x4 who guided me through the diagnostics, rang me on a busy day before the
Easter break. I think for this backup alone I would consider buying a Warn winch (maybe not new - out of my budget).
A frustrating thing I found out the hard way is that after testing each solenoid individually and them working, when I put them together no go. I finally realised that bench testing a winch needs an earth wire from the solenoid pack back to the battery as they normally earth through the chassis. Interestingly no diagrams showed this nor was it mentioned by anyone.
Many thanks for the assistance and if anyone needs any info on this topic I think I may be able to help.
FollowupID:
725180