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Winch getting no power?

9K views 31 replies 7 participants last post by  Biggs 
#1 ·
I finally set up the electrical to my winch, however when I did the "al mighty drumroll" and hit the in/out button, nothing happened.

It's my first winch install so maybe I am missing something? Attached is what I did:
Winch is a Warn RT 40 with Honda winch mount kit.
Winch Module: All attached to corresponding colors.
Winch: Yellow to yellow, blue to blue
Battery...now the red wire will be attached to the starter relay switch?(black boot off). The negative is attached to the body. Basically I followed the negitive cable from battery.I believe this is the frame ground bolt?
The winch control harness is installed with the sub harness. All sub harness installed match the color scheme except for the blue wire. It says in the manual to attach the white wire to the white wire, however the only available wire is blue on the sub harness provided. There is no white.

Anyhow, if anyone sees anything I have done wrong or what I can do to see if it isn't faulty, I'm all ears!
Thanks
 

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#2 ·
Are you connecting the positive cable at the starter relay on the same side as the wire from the battery? You would be better to run your wire directly to the battery so you don't have the extra amperage draw on the factory wire feeding the rest of the electrical system
 
#4 ·
Unhook the winches battery leads.

Recheck all your wires to and from the winch. Test light the wire your tapping for aux power with key on.

After checking everything. Hook the winch leads that go to the battery, right to the battery.
 
#5 ·
Does your relay click for your winch when you push your in or out button if not you need to check your feed wire to your switch positive and negative if nessary hook them strait to the battery for testing If there is a click check your wiring feeding your winch relay no power or ground will let it click but no power will go through to the winch
 
#7 ·
DB,

I think your skills speak for themselves.
 
#13 ·
So when you press the in or out switch you dont get power to the blue or yellow? The middle contact slot is grounded?. Do you get power to the side slot wires when you power in or out?
 
#14 ·
Did you check your aux power yet? If your hooked to the battery, the winch block will have juice. Without aux power the winch isn't going to actuate in or out.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Ok biggs I think you have the same contactor I have if so on top you have the ground and positive on one side and the yellow and blue on the other on the side that the black ground is connected there are 3 1/4 inch slide over connections . The center is ground and the side towards the negative main wire is in and the opposite side is the out control. Take a short wire and hold one end on the positive battery cable on top of the contactor and take the other end and tap the left or right 1/4 inch slide connections if your ground is good your winch should either go out or in. If this doesnt work. Scratch the negative cable and see if you get a spark only touch the negative on top if you touch the negative on the side you could fry it. If you get spark but on negative but no movement when touching positive wire to the contacts then its possible your contactor is shot.
Next try this
Connect some jumper cables to your battery then im not sure if its a dual polarity system or a 3 wire so if you have 3 wires ....blue yellow and black going to your winch motor use only the positive jumper lead and put it for a short second on either the yellow or blue wire your winch should work if not then your motor on the winch is no good


hope this helps
 
#17 ·
But if you have only 2 wires going to your winch motor pick a side put the blue to ground jumper cable then the yellow to positive jumper cable. But just briefly. First free spool a lil line off just incase.
 
#20 ·
So touching positive jumper wire to the slots didnt move the winch? Try the jumper cables and see cause hate for you to send back a contactor when its the motor if you know what I mean
 
#23 ·
Where are you grabbing your switch power from?
 
#25 ·
Well that's the strange thing. My switch power is supposed to come off the sub harness which gets it power from the 2 pin fan connection. 2 wires from the in/out switch connects into the contactor and the other wire attaches to the sub harness that coincides with the fan connection. I don't see any power from all of these 3 wires when I tested them
 
#24 ·
So you have power to your in and out switch. You have power on your positive cable on top of contact. You have ground on top of your contact and middle slot . That means either contactor or winch motor
 
#26 ·
Well that's an issue for sure. Without power to the switch, you can't get power to the winch.
 
#27 ·
So if you pull your power wire off your switch there is no power. Thats not right. But that doesnt sound right that the contactor didnt move the winch when you jumped wire over to the side slots on the contactor
 
#29 ·
I finally managed to get the winch working. Everything is good now and I would like to thank everyone for helping me out. The only reason I solved this was by going through each of the reply's on this post!

As for the Honda winch mount kit....not impressed. I will list the issues I had and hopefully it will help others.

1. The fairlead C bracket bolts that came with the package did not match the grain of nut that you insert it to. I had to pick up my own set of grade 8 bolts/nuts.

2. It comes with a sub harness that wires into your 2 pin fan connection for the auxiliary power. Problem is, they wired it to the negative wire instead of the positive...therefore you get no power to your in/out switch. I had to take the whole thing apart and re-wire it to work. What really P'd me off was it had a "inspected" sticker on it..mmmhmmm.

3. tie on plastic straps to secure your wires. Out of the 10 tie ons I tried, 8 of them broke. The mechanism to tighten it would break right off. No big deal since this is cheap to replace but it's the point..

Hopefully I just had a lemon box so others do not have to go through the same experience.

On a brighter note, it looks pretty **** good on the beast and I'm sure it will come in handy pulling me out of the muskeg:D
 
#31 ·
2. It comes with a sub harness that wires into your 2 pin fan connection for the auxiliary power. Problem is, they wired it to the negative wire instead of the positive...therefore you get no power to your in/out switch. I had to take the whole thing apart and re-wire it to work. What really P'd me off was it had a "inspected" sticker on it..mmmhmmm.

...

Hopefully I just had a lemon box so others do not have to go through the same experience.
First time poster here, and I just had the same experience. Sub harness was wired with incorrect polarity. Also, the instructions showed the sub harness wired in to a 2-pin connector near the driver's side wheel well (with a black plastic connector), but the sub harness connectors didn't fit there. Instead, it only fit a 2-pin connector right in the middle of the vehicle (with a green connector). I'm not sure which one is actually the fan connector.

Biggs - did you re-wire both halves of the sub harness, or just the side that powers the winch control? My winch is working fine with only half of the sub harness re-wired, but I'm not sure if whatever the other half of the sub harness feeds downstream is working properly or not. I had a hard time following the wires to see what exactly it feeds. If it feeds the fan, does the polarity even matter (will it run in reverse if the polarity is reversed)?

Glad I found this site. I never would have guessed the sub harness would be to blame for the winch not working. Seeing this saved me a lot of time. Thanks.
 
#30 ·
Glad you figured it out. Doesn't someone else's ignorance make you mad maybe a Friday or Monday build on that connector
 
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