In April I installed a winch (see another post for the details on that) and the first day out on the trail, stuck in a really muddy spot, the winch didn't work!
As I may or may not have mentioned I bypassed the solenoid and ran power directly to the winch. It was working but only in one direction. A future thought was maybe when we welded the winch plate we forgot to unhook the battery and might have fried the solenoid.
So I was driving around with my winch line wrapped around my cut front bumper and before I knew it the 90 day warranty on the winch was up!
So before I bought another solenoid or winch I decided to re-evaluate the winch situation. Luckily, I removed the old bumper and it made accessing the winch and plate much easier than with the bumper on.
The issue I was easily able to spot was simply that a small wire (probably 18 gauge) running into the winch and solenoid box had broken. You can see the wire below (look at the red wire on the left side and you'll see that tiny dirty wire). Reconnected that wire and back in business!
I left the cover off so you can sort of see what is inside the solenoid box. As you can see there are numerous connector types and some bolts so any of these things could easily come loose. As an added measure I ran some RTV around the edges before putting the box back on and plugged some holes (I left one small one open) to help prevent any water intrusion.
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