Bones, Indeed that is on the list of things to do, I have a crimper and need to get some cable and ends to crimp on. I went down yesterday with intents to haul my 'ol '46 to the scale to get it weighed, but didn't have a battery for the winch and with the brakes not working I could drive it up the bed when it was tilted, but couldn't hold it there long enough for the trailer to level...so I need to get a battery or hook the charger up to it, if I can run an extension that far, so I can winch it up onto the trailer as was intended. Needless to say, I didn't end up moving the pickup at all, other than back off the trailer. I got rained on and soaked, and created quite a mess in the mud. Need to re-think this and get the pickup on the trailer, getting close, oh so close...but close only counts in horseshoes, as-is said...
Alan, I used to be and guess I still am, a Ramsey winch dealer. I’ve sold and installed many winches, electric, pto, hydraulic and believe it or not air. One of the hardest things I tried and could not get across to people is, just because you have a 12,000 lbs winch you don’t allways have 12,000 lbs of pull. First of all all winches are rated on the drum. On most electric winches, a full spool reduces the rating by 50%, now we are at 6,000lbs. To get 12,000 lbs out of a 12,000 winch, you need a lot of battery, three to be exact. So if a guy puts one used, 50% battery on a 12,000 lbs winch off the top row, we now have approximately a 3,000 lbs winch, that will heat up more quickly, further reducing its capacity. Not implying any thing ! Just stating facts. I’ve had people argue that they used their winch with one battery and no problem, I would take them back to my burned up motor pile and they still didn’t understand. A small winch on a big/strong battery is better than a big winch on a small/weak battery. Hope this helps. Bones
We put a Gearmatic 119 winch on the skidder, The factory installed a Gearmatic 9 and that was not up to the rest on the skidder.
Oh, that I know and wasn't expecting my winch to lift 9500 lbs. Mine is a 9500, not even a 12000. However, I would expect that winch to be able to pull most vehicles to 6000 lbs up the tilted trailer. In the case of my 'ol '46 pickup it weighs in the neighborhood of 3000 lbs. It won't be lifting them, just pulling them up the trailer while they roll on their wheels. That's an interesting thought that I hadn't known about, I'll keep that in mind. I think they came with a 94' cable on them, I don't know how that relates to the drum. I can't argue with that logic, but I will not be using the winch very much at all, and when I do it will only be to pull something on the trailer. Let's talk batteries. I have been told it would be better to have a deep cycle battery and/or Marine battery for the winch. I have been pondering getting a deep cycle. However, if I get the same battery as in the truck, I could use that as a backup in the case the battery in front is not working or looses a charge, just seemed like good backup logic. I don't have a battery for the trailer yet, but there is a fused line running from the front battery back to the trailer, and my plan is to get a battery and connect that to the positive so that it will charge the battery when a battery was connected back on the trailer and the truck was running. I've been told some conflicting info on this as well. A couple people have told that that some alternators don't like having 2 batteries to charge. I don't know if that will be the case or not, just what I've been told. I figure it would be charging the battery while I was driving and not using the winch. Any comment on that? Do you not think a battery at the trailer will allow it to run the winch constant? How much battery would it take to run my winch do you think? This manual says it will draw 435 amps when pulling 9500 lbs. https://www.smittybilt.com/docs/installation/97495.pdf Thanks for your reply Bones.
Well, Alan, there is a lot about batteries, I also worked as Master Mechanic at our Fire Dept. For 33 years. Hardly anyone on the planet depends on and deals with batteries more than a Fire Dept. Some of our trucks had six batteries in parallel with alternators and that is the standard now. We call them “ six-packs”. So that answers one of your questions. There are things that should be done in a perfect world, some things that are “ ok” , some things you should do, and things that folks do. One thing you do NOT want to do is mix automotive batteries with deep cycle batteries. What you WANT to do is match your batteries as close as possible in age and amperage. What is acceptable is two “ good “ car batteries. What you WANT is a cable connecting them that is 00, so that all of the amperage from your truck battery and alternator can be transferred to the trailer battery. And use a 350 amp connections. What most folks do is run a 14/12 gauge wire with a fuse. I would run as big a wire as you can with a circuit breaker equal to the size of your wire. Now let’s talk grounds..... in a truck your battery grounds to your engine with a big wire, but to your frame and body, only a small wire. Need to add a battery cable size wire ground from the battery negative post to the frame. Then you need a same size ground cable from your truck frame to the trailer frame. Those connectors are available at most big parts stores under Borg Warner. Problaly missed a few things. But this will give you some things to consider. Bones
I'm glad you mentioned that, I was thinking to get a deep cycle for the trailer and have it on the same system. That's what is there now. The ground connects from the frame through the 7 wire which will connect directly to the winch. I'll plan that when I get back from my trip on Sat. I won't be using it so it's just sitting in my yard. I will revisit this when I get back. But let me ask you this. What if I just used a battery that wasn't connected to anything, and just clip the winch on the battery? That is what the previous owner did. He said it worked well to pull stuff on the trailer. I do have a battery charger in the shed down at my yard, so I could do that and I bet it would be just fine. For that the deep cell would be the ticket...but I like the idea of using 2 of the same batteries, just a good overall safety net if the front battery gets drained. All this talk about cables reminds me that I never redid the cables in this truck, I will do that when I get back. On my '46 I used 2/0 because it's 6 volt. I was going to use 2 AWG on this flatbed as it's 12 volts.
Alan , in my years of dealing with winches, I have seen things that shouldn’t work, but the customer claimed no problems and excellent performance. Once had a guy that had a 8,000 lbs winch on his trailer and ran 25 ft of 12 gauge wire with clips to his truck battery and claimed he had used it for years and pulled heavy loads with it. It shouldn’t have hardly worked at all. But he was in buying a new winch. Deep cycle batteries are designed to be recharged over and over, that’s good, in this case. But they won’t deliver high amperage like an automotive battery will and that’s what a winch needs, under heavy load. To answer your question, yes it will work. I’ve had two customers that used their winches daily with one battery that they charged.They let me install batteries and cables and grounds right on their trailers. Both said they just thought their winches were working right. Said now the winches literally “ throw “ the cars onto the trailer. Neither had as heavy duty trailers,nor as steep a loading angle as you do. Both were between the axle trailers. Jumper cable clamps severely limit the amperage to large cables. Think when you try to jump a car with a 100 % discharged battery, most of the time you have to let the dead battery charge a little before the car will start. That’s because the clamps won’t let enough amperage through to charge the battery and start the car at the same time. When you really need it theywill let you down. Light work, probably no problem. Also, get you a ****** block, it doubles the capacity of your winch. Bones
Alan, one more winch story. I sold a good friend a 9,500 lbs Ramsey winch for his jacked up huge tired modifyed Jeep. I told him he needed two batteries for that winch to perform right. He told me it did just fine with his 24/series 6 cylinder Jeep battery. We went to an excursion, with several friends,in the Red River, West of Oklahoma, in Texas. Thought it was a Jeep thing, but found out they all had small 4x4s, like Polaris’s and such. We went any way. We couldn’t keep up, but tried. About noon we turned around headed back to camp, took a wrong turn, got buried in what was close to quiksand. Even with two ****** blocks, the winch wouldn’t pull us out. Not enough power/battery. Missed the crew coming back. Had to sleep on the river bank that Winter night. Next morning one friend came back for us, with another ****** block and jumper cables. We added those and the winch, then pulled the Jeep out of the mud after it had sit all night and sank a little deeper and the sand had settled in and solidified to like cement. My friend said it was the worst night of his life. But, you know what??? He still just has one battery! He just says he’s not going with me anymore! Bones
My OT 82 -3/4 ton wrecker has a electric winch. It does Ok but don't have the power of a PTO or reduction geared hand powered winch. Yesterday I needed to cut wood. its been raining and its muddy. There was a good sized mature red Oak tree in the driveway to our other place. It was dying because of Boer infestation. But it was leaning toward the powerlines. I took a ladder and attached the winch cable 20 ft up in the tree. ran thru a ****** block. And I notched the tree and used the winch to safely fell that tree. It was rotten in the center and had insect tunnels all thru it.
Between Bones and Old Wolf I have learned more about winches than I thought possible in 15 minutes. Thank you both!! Randy Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Ive ran a few D9,s in the past. mostly as a push cat loading s****ers. I see that there isn't any cable on one side of the unit. Quite often folks will strip the parts from the unused side to repair the other side. One of my 14A internationals the parts have been robbed from the one side. Mine are not live power when you release the clutch they are dead. One some cats the Cable unit is driven by a shaft that has a gear that is turned by the ring gear on the flywheel.
Well, here's an update. I drove down to Thousand Oaks to visit my Mom...hadn't been there 45 minutes and my wife called, drain was stopped up. Tried to get someone to clear it but they wanted $350! <YIKES!> I got back in my truck and drove back home, opened the clean out opening, and went to the rental yard in the morning and fixed it myself for $40 (2 hour rental for a mainline snake). Then I went to try the winch on the trailer. This seems like a bad week for me... The battery only had 9.5 volts, but I thought I would test putting it on anyway, nothing. Then I pulled the battery charger out of the shed and hooked it up to the battery, I had 13 volts and some change, which looked better, so I tried to connect that to the winch. After 10 minutes of diagnosing I realized the breaker popped...hmmm...so I climbed back in the shed and reset the breaker. Not to be shown up, I proceeded to connect the charger to the winch again (like a dummy, just making sure I'm a dummy) and of course blew the breaker. I left the charger with the battery to get it up to normal voltage. I will go back down tomorrow and take a 4-ton come-a-long with me. I'll get that 'ol '46 on the trailer no matter what I need to do...LOL Was hoping to have a pic of the pickup on the trailer, but no go...maybe tomorrow. I'll have to figure out WTF is wrong with the winch, but something must be shorted. I tried continuity between the negative and positive posts on the winch, but didn't get any...that was good, but still not sure why it is popping the breaker...
Like I said there is a electric winch on my wrecker but it don't impress me. A hand winch has more power and doesn't need batterys. One of those old BEEBE BROS hand winches with a ****** block and you can load anything. They are light enough a fit person can easily carry one.
Old Wolf, our D-9 has live lift. Old Wolf and TTW, you guys are both experiencing the most common things that go wrong with electric winches. Not enough battery! A winch is not a magical thing, it cannot create power.... it just converts what power is available (battery) into motion/power. If you start with very little electrical power, you will not get much motion. Plus if the winch try’s to pull a heavy load with out enough electrical power at it disposal, it will heat faster, therefore needing more electrical power, which isn’t available. It’s kinda like a snowball rolling down hill,,, gathering momentum. I have actually seen electric winches kill a running engine, due to its electrical pull. Enough battery power and the right cables to get it to the winch is the answer. Bones
My wrecker has a large battery. and two heavy welding lead from the battery to the winch mounted in the bed right against the front. When I use it I keep the engine running. It has two electric motors a larger one to pull and a smaller one for reverse.It works ok however the gear ratio makes it not as powerful as a pto or low geared hand winch. One time I was sent to south ark to get a burned log skidder. I took a ten wheeler diesel truck that had a roll back bed. The owner went with me. Big fat guy 400 pounds. We got there and it was a 100 degrees. Using a ****** block I got the skidder about a third of the way on the truck. and the Hyd motor on the winch stalled out. we ran out of drinking water. and couldn't get it loaded. Finally by shifting the bed and hooking that ****** block to a tree I managed to get out from under the skidder. This fat guy was looking pretty bad. I really thought he was gonna die. I drove to the Hospital and they had to keep him a long time.
Ok I was thinking about the difference with a electric winch and a hand or PTO driven one. The old cats The early gas engines didn't use electric starters. they had a bar you put in a hole in the flywheel and pulled down. some had a gear reduction hand crank at the very front. Then the diesels they had a 2cyl pony engine and the first where hand cranked. Ok in 1980 jobs where scarce. and in the fall a road job started. I was hired to operate a D8. and got my pick of dozers. and I took the old D8 with the pony engine. I was laughed at because I didn't pick the newer 77 V with the electric start. and when the cold temp came 5 degrees. The only cat that started was my Pony engine D8 so I got to continue working. everyone else was laid off until late spring. I pushed trees and removed top soil all winter. Had a Hyd blade but still had a cable unit on back. So I pulled a dirt pan moving dirt. I fastened a tarp over the radiator. It had a pusher fan. Then I used 8 inch PCV pipe and elbows to direct the heat back to the cab. and used plywood sides about two feet high. I was plenty comfortable. I also instead of a hard hat wore a motorcycle helmet with a face shield.
Old Wolf, you sound like a man that can “ get her done “! I always thought I was pertty self sufficient, but I think you have me beat! Bones
Bones, I'm back with a bit more info, but so far no go on the winch. I brought it home and started to dis***emble it and took the solenoid off. I downloaded the manual, which says the solenoid can stick and try hitting it. However, would a stuck solenoid pop a breaker if a battery charger was hooked up to it? Here's the manual, I have an XRC 10. https://www.catalograck.com/ImgVD/SMI/97281_fairlead.pdf I was going to use my 4-ton come-along but turns out it only has a 12' cable...(can't win for loosing). I may try to use it with a tow strap to get enough length, the trailer is 20', so I need at least 25'-30' unless I wrap a tow strap around the axle. One option is to winch the truck up to the rear wheels at the back of the trailer, put wheel chocks behind the rear wheels so the truck won't roll down the tilted bed, put a couple 10,000 lb. ratchet straps to hold the truck, re-adjust the come-along and winch it up until the tilt-top flips upright, and lock the top. If I can get that to work I will take it to the scale to get weighed, and then leave it on the trailer to take to the DMV. Any comments on a solenoid popping a breaker if it was stuck? EDIT: this video validates what Bones was saying about the cables, and specifically points to the ground being substandard. EDIT2: Holy flock sheepman, this one really hits home...good thing something worse didn't happen. I don't have any burnt up components yet. I wanted the manual before I took the wires off. PS - Bones I think I just answered that question about a solenoid popping a breaker...LOL
Bones, The solenoid looked like **** on the outside. However, on the inside it looked pretty good and I think this is still good. I will need to test it tomorrow. So after seeing the first video above, I decided to run a larger ground. I had this small pig tail I was using as a temp battery to ch***is on my truck, but have since made a set of 2/0 cables that worked XLNT. Before I go any further, I will test the winch on my truck battery tomorrow. If it works, I will clean and re***emble everything and then test the solenoid. The remote was filthy inside and I cleaned and sprayed all the connections with Ballistol. Smells horrible but it's ok on electrical. I found one of my problems in the manual. Page 6 (link above) shows the wiring, and I was connecting the positive to the red and the negative to black. *However*, in looking at that wiring diagram it was my fault, the negative is down below, and I was using the D post as the negative and it goes to the motor. The negative post is below on A and goes to the negative post on the battery as well as the solenoid. Mine had an AWG 10 wire going to ground, but I feel more comfortable with the larger battery cable. In the pic above I have the old ground (red AWG 10) connected, but that's redundant and I pulled it off.
Alan , I am not familiar with the new crop of forgien winches. But on a Ramsey the 9500 lbs winches have either 4 car size solenoids or two lager double acting solenoids. If one sticks and another is energized it will cause a direct short and could cause your battery charger to blow a circuit breaker. It would be like clamping to two ends of the charger together. Sticking solenoids are a big problem with some brands of winches. Now... let’s talk about what makes a solenoid stick..... low voltage!!! Where do you get low voltage? Junk / discharged / small batteries and small cables! Seems like we’ve been here before! . Does your winch motor have two terminals? Or three? Bones
I went back and looked at the manual and it appears you have the three terminal motor. This is usually considered better and is almost always found on your bigger and more expensive winches.. But it is a little more complicated. On the two terminal winch motor, the solenoid pack, simply changes polaration of the terminal. That is ones negative and the other is positive and they switch. On the three wire motors you have to change the polarity of the fields. That’s the two terminals that are close together. Just like in the two wire motor, but then you have to add current to the third terminal for the motor to work, every time weather it’s forward or reverse. Depending on the mounting , I would some times remove the three wires from the motor and try it. If I got heavy amp draw, the problem is in the solenoids, if not in the motor. I had a special set of short jumper cables (3) and would then hook them up to the motor to see if it would spin and reverse. Also one of the common problem with winches, is a guy took the solenoids pack apart and ***embled them back incorrectly. The circuit in the three wire solenoid pack is a head scratcher. The two wire is a lot simpler. They both use the 4 solenoid system but are wired differently. Bones
Your solenoid pack appears to be in good shape, but can’t be sure without testing. Usually if you can dis***emble a solenoid pack, such as yours, damage can be seen. On Ramsey the individual solenoid cannot be dis***embled. So we have to test. Solenoid can be intermittent also, adding to the problems. Also just because a solenoid shows continuaity ( voltage) doesn’t always mean it will transfer amperage. More problems! Most folks that have messed with cars any length of time at all, have seen what a Chevy stater solenoid looks like dis***embled. You can see the burn marks and metal transfer on the contact points. This is what some times hold the contact parts apart. Alan , your solenoid pack indicates that is has not been used much, if it is the original, your winch should be in good shape, I would double check your wiring from the pack to the motor, for starters. Clean all contacts. Bones
I agree as I said above, it looks very clean and I don't suspect anything is wrong. I don't know if one of them was sticking or not, at least it seemed that only one was "floating", but I'm certain that both are free now. I hate to admit I just woke up...LOL (I'm a late night kinda guy, hold over from being a musician). Ok, I see that I can test this by applying power to the 2 "proper" terminals. I believe it was my fault in popping the breaker, but I think I understand correctly now. I should be able to test voltage to see that the winch motor works, and I should be able to reverse the leads and see the motor spin the opposite way. I have a set of jumper cables and will test this on my <gasp!> Tacoma battery shortly.
If you disconnect your motor from the pack, you will need three jumper cables to get the motor to spin, then reverse the polarity of the two close together terminals, it should spin the other way. Bones
Bones, Do tell more. I was just about ready to toss in the towel, but tell me about the 3 jumper cables? Where do I want to hook them? I dis***embled the motor as I tried to use 2 posts, positive and ground, but the motor wouldn't move. I opened it up and took it apart and looked at everything...same after I put it all back together again. Sparks on the post but nothing. Inside looked pretty clean, except there was some white oxidation or powder of some kind around the ground terminal. I got it all cleaned up and back together but same thing. Thing is the motor looks pretty good, I don't see any fried or burned wires and connections on the copper. I'm pretty sure this motor is not spinning, but it doesn't make sense. I completely eliminated the solenoid, and no spin, but tell me about the 3 cable start!
On the motor there are three terminals one energizes the brushes. The other two energizes the fields. The current needs to run through the field terminals. Then to the brush terminal the motor should turn.. reverse the cables on the field terminals and it should go the other way. Bones
Winches, winches, winches...we ain't done yet...I found a Smittybilt 9500 lb. replacement motor on ebay for $100, it's not the exact motor, but the rotor shaft and mount look the same. I offered the guy $60 (LOL), but he sold it to me for $95. I'll replace that in my winch when it gets here. The other motor doesn't look too bad inside, but I don't know enough about motors to fix it.
I would rig up a hand crank to put on that winch and be done with it. back in the day lots of folks would put a hand crank on the front shaft of a transmission. and connect a short drive shaft to the outpuit and let the cable wind around that driveshaft. Ive got one of those miller tilt top trailers. Why don't you get the trailer lined up with the vehicle. block the wheels unhook from it and tilt the bed place some weight at the rear to keep it tilted. Then hook a chain to your tow vehicle and drag the vehicle up on your trailer? We have loaded plenty of stuff on out tilt top that way. I use a handy man jack at the front to keep the bed tilted.
From the pictures of your motor it should be good, brushes are long, comuntater doesn’t look burnt. Should work. Did you hook up the cables to the motor, like I described ? Bones
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