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Remote winch solenoid install – JK with Pentastar

12K views 26 replies 3 participants last post by  JeepCO12 
#1 ·
Warning – very long post….. !!!

A few months ago I searched around and did not find any threads on this – maybe I missed them, but all I was coming up with was questions and no answers. If you have an air compressor already taking the space on the driver side firewall and then you have an SPOD mounted in the usual location, the available space for a winch solenoid in a Pentatsar equipped JK becomes pretty limited. I saw installs in a void next to the battery in older JKs but that space is gone in the 2012s and later.

No room with SPOD and air compressor mounted on the driver side:
 

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#2 ·
I wanted to move the solenoid for three reasons:
1) I don’t much like the idea of a long unswitched positive wire running all the way down to the winch motor with the potential for rubbing insulation and a vehicle fire
2) Aesthetics and a clear grill – I went for a full sunk winch to give a clear airflow to the grill and a more streamlined look – having the solenoid stick up messed up that idea
3) I placed my driving lights where they would least obstruct view of the turn signals. The Superwinch Talon plug for the hand held controller ended up so adjacent to the passenger side driving light I could not use it – so that committed me to making a remote mounting solution work.

Solenoid up against the driving light:
 

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#3 ·
The most useable space left in the engine bay was the space on top of the battery and that location would have an unswitched positive cable only a few inches long going straight from the battery to the solenoid on top of it. I pulled the plastic cover off the winch solenoid and, using one of those camera thingies for looking in walls etc (video borescope) I saw that, with the hood down, it looked like I had sufficient clearance to use the top part of the existing Superwinch box in my install and would not have to fabricate something.

The worst part of the project would be finding a way to safely run four 2 AWG wires (pos, neg and the two motor field wires) between the battery area and the winch motor. There is not sufficient room on the outside of the headlight along the side of the engine bay, and the space between the engine and the battery / fuse box / air filter plastic tub is tight. I planned to mount the handheld controller plug between the front grill slots as others have done.

I am only an amateur with enough knowledge to be dangerous so I decided I would run my wiring plan past an expert. I modified the wiring diagram that came with the winch to show what I proposed and sent it to Jason at Superwinch who was very helpful. My diagram includes an on/off switch in the cab (in my case one of the SPOD switches) and also a toggle switch in the cab to run the winch line in and out without using the handheld controller (this toggle switch is not installed yet and may not be drawn right – but everything else is completed).

The red and black wires feeding power to the relays would be cut and rerouted:
 

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#4 ·
If you do this, probably the cost effective way to get the longer motor cables is to measure what you need and have a welding shop or similar fab them up for you. I decided to buy the Superwinch extension kit #2302282 and then cut the cables down to the length I would need.

Superwinch Solenoid Relocation Kit LONG , 2302282 | superwinchexperts
That meant I needed to be able to crimp or solder new connectors on the cables that would reliably handle the high current the winch can draw. I would need 90º connectors for 2AWG wire that would fit a 5/16” post. (I actually ended up using three 90º and one 45º but I think 4 nineties would have been better – Panduit - PAN-LCA2-56F-Q). After reading a bunch of stuff, some on marine forums, I concluded the way to go is to crimp the cables so I used an FTZ crimping tool. To be sure my amateur efforts would not burn the Jeep to the ground, I practiced on one lug and then hacksawed the lug through the crimp to check I had the right dies selected – the copper wire was absolutely solid and you could not tell where the crimp barrel started and the wire began – It was all fused together.
FTZ crimping tool dies set at H and K for these lugs:
 

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#5 ·
In the first wiring diagram above, you can see the motor has the blue, yellow and red/white circuits connected to the solenoid by solid copper buss bars (two removed and visible next to the crimpers in plastic lid in the above pic). These get removed and replaced with three long extension wires. The buss bars, being rigid and attached at one end to a motor stud cannot move and short against another terminal if the nut at the solenoid end becomes undone. However, the replacement wires are not rigid and could move about if the nuts securing them to the solenoid worked loose. The connections are close enough together that the wires could short out if this is not addressed with insulation and / or mechanically securing the wires so they cannot move about. Hmmm…

OK – so I removed the four allen screws securing the plastic top of the solenoid box and then set about removing the buss bar connections and the base plate until I had the solenoid separated from the winch motor.

Plastic cover off:
 

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#7 ·
I then needed to secure the solenoid to the vehicle. There is a body colored 10mm bolt in the top of the fender next to the battery that looked promising. I had a piece of light gauge steel bent and welded to the existing base plate. Here is my drawing for that – although it ended up being a slightly different shape:
 

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#8 ·
This drawing is misleading – shows the new piece of the bracket welded to the existing Superwinch bracket (at right) so the bracket will drop down onto the battery – in fact this ended up being welded so the bracket was flush horizontally. This allowed a gap above the battery for the various bolts mounting the solenoid to the base plate to poke through – otherwise they would be jammed into the battery top. The final painted bracket is below:
 

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#9 ·
My plan to address the worry about the solenoid connections vibrating loose and rotating into each other was simple. Get a short piece of plastic pipe (an inch and a half or so) and put it over one of the terminals then wire tie the surrounding cables to the pipe providing both mechanical support and electrical separation. Well the pipe didn’t fit over a terminal so I ended up cutting some PVC pipe in half and doing something a bit funky. Then I removed the hand controller plug from the plastic solenoid box cover, took a Dremel tool and cut a square opening to let the wires through. Now the wires / lugs should never touch (i will use zip ties to secure the PVC in place):
 

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#10 ·
I installed the ends of my three cables on the motor (red / blue / yellow) and ran them from the winch between the radiator and the body/ chassis mount. The ground cable, I sleeved in braided nylon wrap and ran to the left of the body mount. I took the headlight out and was able to fish the ground wire along the side of the fender.
 

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#11 ·
I routed the three wires on top of the frame. There is a brake line mounted in this area – be careful not to let the sharp edges of that cut into the wires. I zip tied the wires to the chassis frame (wide 18” zip tie) and then drilled holes in the top of the shock tower (small holes and zip tie) to support the wires tight and away from the engine block. I made sure the swag of the wire between these two points was such that it is held away from the brake line on the frame. Then I zip tied the wires together so they form a rigid bundle.
 

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#13 ·
I was concerned about clearance from the engine as I routed the wires between the big plastic tub that contains the air filter, the fuse box and the battery. I pulled the fuse box and considered cutting a hole in the bottom of the tub and routing the wires up through there. There is room to go that way and be assured of being clear of the engine / dipstick etc. I had visions of fording a river, the water coming up, hitting the bottom of the tub and shooting up like a fire hose through the hole and into the fuse box leaving me stranded mid stream. So I balked at that. I have since seen that there are penetrations in that tub in the battery area (I was in a relatively dark garage at the time) so maybe this is not a worry. I have also been told most of the water in that situation hits the hood and falls down into the tub anyway… oh well. I decided to go along the side of the plastic tub on the engine side. I pulled the battery and drilled from inside the battery box securing two of the wires with one zip tie and the other with another tie. I separated them to make sure the dip stick would not get close to the wires when the engine moves under load. Then I used a step drill and made three holes on top of each other at a bend in the tub wall to allow the wires to run into the battery box:
 

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#15 ·
I extended the red and black relay wires along the firewall over to the SPOD relays to provide my on/off power switch. Then I cut the hand controller plug off, soldered 4 extension wires for it which run down the fender (next to the motor ground wire) and across the top side of the radiator zip tied to an existing wiring loom there.
 

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#16 ·
At the moment, I have a small piece of plywood under the solenoid box to keep the through bolts from chewing into the battery top. I plan to get a piece of rubber mat about a ¼” thick with Velcro either side of it to secure it to the solenoid and the battery top. If I need to move the battery, there is enough service loop in the wiring to undo the one fender bolt, unstick the Velcro and lift the solenoid out of the way.

Complete except for the grill plug:
 

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#17 ·
So – now I needed another bracket for the plug. A simple bent piece of metal with a few holes in it. Don’t use the measurements on this drawing of mine – take your own. The big hole I made was too small and I had to grind it out but it worked eventually. I mounted it to the two bolt holes (empty on our manual Jeep) which I think hold the automatic transmission cooler in place at the right side of the radiator:
 

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#18 ·
And, amazingly it all works! Turn the power on in the cab, plug in the controller and the winch starts turning – in the right direction too, which is always a plus! The only thing I don’t like about this project is the wires are fastened to the vehicle with zip ties. I would have preferred to use adel clamps which have no danger of cutting through the sleeving but there was no room to do that without disassembling a whole lot of stuff.

Wheels and tires next ☺
 

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#19 ·
EXCELLENT write up! Two thumbs up to you!

I plan to relocate my controller sometime this week and your write up will certainly help. The only thing I'm going to do differently is I'm going to place the remote plug inside the Jeep.

Did you have to buy your crimp tool or were you able to get a loaner tool someplace. (That's the only thing holding me back at this point - don't want to shell out the bucks for a crimp tool to only use a handful of times.)
 
#20 ·
I had to buy the tool - you might be able to get a local welder or garage to loan you one. Or take the cables and get them to solder the ends on for you. I decided after reading that I did not want the cables to stiffen up with solder and would crimp them. I bought the tool from KL Jack after reading a comprehensive write up on a sailing forum and justified the dollars with the learning experience. (pretty thin justification I know!) Note that I used an FTZ crimper and the writing on the side of my Panduit lugs did not correspond to the codes on the crimper dies. I called Panduit and they did not have a conversion table. In the end I used the table that came with the tool. There are two styles of lug with differing wall thicknesses - I got the heavier wall and initially was using the wrong setting. My second crimp I sawed through to inspect was perfect.

Good luck with your project!
 
#24 ·
I was actually going to use string to get the lengths I need...then add a little to the "measured" length to allow for a slight amount of slack/fudge factor.

2ga. battery cable is available at Advanced Auto for $2 a foot. They also have the terminals. Wondering if they may have a crimp tool for loan.
 
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