The Landblogger

Winch Solenoids

Tonight I installed the solenoid pack and cover and wired everything up according to the schematics from Bill Vista's site. I made sure to undo the negative battery cable while threading the main cable through the rad enclosure and attaching it to the positive side.

Learned a long time ago that when playing with positive terminals you want to disconnect the neg first to ensure you can't short it out with a wrench or, like a guy I once knew, your wedding ring...

Everything installed, remote wired up and I connected the final power cable. No sparks, no hot wires or shorts, so I must have done something right.

However, my first try resulted in nothing but silence. I used a test light to check current, ohm meter to check ground -- all checked out.

After a little more sniffing around I came to the conclusion that one of the low current pins might need to be grounded. Took the solenoids back apart to ensure I didn't send current where it didn't belong and did a test with one solenoid. Power to one low current pin, ground to the other and -- click -- full current went through it to the motor.

So, rather than run an additional wire I just removed the plastic insulator under the terminals I am using for ground and put the nuts back on. Note in the picture above, one terminal has a ground washer and the other one doesn't.

Tightened up all the other connections again, plugged in the remote and voila -- she works!

Now, to find something to pull. Hmmm, that stump in the corner of the yard might give it a good workout on the weekend...

Remote control

After building the solenoid pack, based on the plastic Warn cover, I needed to wire it to my remote. I had an original old Warn remote, but with the plug in end missing.

So, back to Lordco, I ordered the plug receptacle which mounts in the hole on the cover, and tried to order a new plug. The receptacle was $27 when it arrived, somewhat pricey for a plastic part, and the plug was not available unless you bought the entire remote. Back to the drawing board...

So I went to an RV dealer and found this nice metal plug, and receptacle, for $11. Obviously that trip was followed by a trip back to Lordco to return the $27 Warn package.

Final step for the solenoid pack is to add shrink tub to my 4 gauge connections, and grommets to the metal backing plate and I'll bolt it on tonight.

The bumper

I figured the crank starter is one of the things that makes the Land Rover unique, so decided, whether it's easy to do or not, I wanted to retain it. I was happy to see at the end of the process that everything fit, and I didn't even have to lengthen the starter handle.

A couple of folks I talked to had commented on the pros and cons of mounting the winch high or down in (or below) the bumper. From my point of view, there wasn't alot of difference for ocassional use winching, so I went with mounting the winch above.

I did the following to the bumper:

Cut off and recurve the ends 8", the length now is the same as the tire when at full lock, thus the bumper won't hang you up if in heavy rock with your wheels turned.

Reinforced the original bumper with 2" x 1/4" flat cold rolled welded to the underside of the top, from one frame rail to the other. This is invisible, but really strengthened the bumper to take the extra weight.

Welded in 2" angle iron 8" long left and right to create a ledge for the bottom plate, which bolts to frame. Thus the bumper can be removed.

Welded a bottom 1/4" plate of 8" depth by full width between frame rails, basically as reinforcement. The winch doesn't actually sit on it.

Welded a front 1/4" plate of 8.5" by 16 inches, which later had the holes drilled and the hole cut for the fairlead. This is pretty universal now, so as long as you have a reasonably modern winch the standard fairlead fits either with the 2 bottom bolts, as this one does, or with the 2 top bolts.

Welded angled gussets at 45 degrees back from the front plate.

I actually only tacked everything together cuz the welder I was using was a bit light duty for the task. Took it to my favourite welding shop and they finish welded everything for about $50.

With the winch off, the bumper unbolts and is removable. The only thing I would add (and will in the future) is a plate on the outside of the frame rails where the horizontal bolts go. When I was torquing the grade 8 bolts up to 60 pounds, which I though would be more than tight enough, I noticed I was beginning to get some frame crush. This may be due to an old and somewhat rusty frame, but a plate on the outside would solve it. I chose to torque to 40 pounds, which worked with no problem.

Solenoids and such

The next thing I did, once the winch was sitting in my basement for the winter, was to start figuring out what information I could get on it. The local Lordco claimed to be the Warn experts, but I couldn't find a single person that actually knew anything about them.

So, to the Internet I went.

There is many a mention, but one website blew all the others away:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/8274/8274.htm

Bill Vista photographed the total rebuild of an 8274 of similar vintage to mine. Unbelievable resource.

I found that I didn't really need to rebuild mine yet as it was pretty sound, but I was missing the solenoid pack. Bill Vista had photos and diagrams of the solenoids, pictured below, which made it easy to rebuild.

Using Bill Vista's pics, I purchase one part, a Warn solenoid cover, so I had a template of sorts to base my solenoid pack on. It was $28 from Lordco. (I found a couple of guys at the local store that know what they're talking about, where were they before?)

I then purchased 4 constant duty solenoids and some 4 gauge wire. An aluminum plate did for the backing and it took a bit of messing around to get everything in place.

In the meanwhile the front bumper on the truck got some reinforcement, shortened ends, and an upright frame to mount the winch.

The fairlead came from a company in Florida via eBay, at $40 US, which was somewhat cheaper than I could find it locally.

Thats it for the moment. Next, I'll mount the solenoid pack and wire it up.

Winch Saga

I don't know whether I'll be able to give you the whole story here, but I'll let you know a bit about what I went through to finally get a winch on my truck. Likely it will be a few installments.

It started last year with my father-in-law looking at the wide open front bumper and telling me I needed a winch to fill the spot. Of course I do, but with all the other priorities this one was just not near the top of the list.

He wandered out to his shed and came back with a monstrous 10,000 pound winch that original was mounted on his 3/4 ton Jeep pickup in the late seventies, which he was kind enough to give me.

While I was very grateful for the gift, for it put me 100% ahead of where I started, I had some reservations. This thing was huge and heavy, more than one person could lift into place. Also, the depth of it was about 15" so I had some serious fitting problems, because there is about 9.5" between the bumper and the grille. The body of the winch was aluminum with a built-in press-fit fairlead, 3 out 4 rollers of which were totally jammed.

So I sat on the project for a year or so, thinking along the way how I could fit it, and how I could free up or cut off the fairlead.

In the meantime I came across a fellow who asked if I knew where he could find a heavy duty winch for a mini logging and farming operation. He had a bush bumper and a lighter duty winch for a chev pickup that he would trade. I told him about my 10,000 pounder, he said his was a Warn 8000 pounder and a deal was struck, pending a call to my father-in-law.

My father-in-law was gracious, commenting that he thought the Jeep winch was too big for the truck, and suggesting that I proceed with the trade.

The Warn winch turned out to be a rather grubby, but not leaking, Warn 8274, with the solenoid switches removed and replaced by a single lead to a single solenoid.

The reputation of this is winch one of the best in the business, so I came away from the deal feeling pretty good, but most of the work was still ahead of me.