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Warn Winch - Wiring Questions

3K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  H8SPVMT 
#1 ·
When closing my hood today I heard a rattle. A quick inspection found a VERY THICK WIRE kinda stuffed behind the battery on purpose.

I traced this wire and found that it appears to be the negative connection wire coming from my Warm Winch (9.5 CTI) - It is about as thick as my pinkie.

Now, I can only assume it should either be attached to the negative post or maybe grounded to the frame or something but I thought I would ask.

This winch was on my Jeep when I bought it, and it does work as is.

I looked on the Warn website and I thought I'd just deffer to the pro's!

Any help is greatly appreciated! I'll attach a couple pics...

Thank you,

DJ



 
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#3 ·
What I would do is use a multi meter to check to see if that particular wire shorts out to ground. That will tell you if the wire is in fact already grounded.

I'm not sure why someone would run the cable up to and behind the battery, then not hook anything up to it.

Have you completely traced the wire from one end to the other, so that you know for certain that you're looking at the negative wire from the winch?

Exco
 
#4 ·
Looks like the positive wire crosses right over the top of the negative pole of the battery too. Not smart ... it's likely to never short out but there's lots of potential for wear and if it does short your battery would likely explode in the resulting plasma fire. If that is what it looks to be please route the positive wire away from the negative post with some wire ties.
 
#5 ·
I did trace the wire, and there's some printing on it, so I am positive that it is the wire. I believe they ran it up to the battery - looks like they did a great job - but didn't hook it up to the negative terminal and instead tucked it behind things so it didn't touch anything.

The Positive wiring set DOES go right over the Negative terminal so I will zip tie it in a new location. Thanks for catching that!
 
#6 ·
"so I am positive that it is the wire," BUT WHAT WIRE? Not the negative wire from the winch.

Maybe from an install of a previous sound system...... maybe an outside source to charge the battery....

You need to have a mechanic look at that.

So the wire was stuffed behind the battery but what caused the rattle in the hood?
 
#8 ·
Your winch is currently working because the winch is mounted to a metal plate. That metal plate is connected to your chassis. The chassis is connected to a different wire that runs from the battery negative lead to the chassis. That wire that runs from the negative terminal to the chassis is likely not an adequate thickness to fully support powering the winch under load.

If that wire does in fact run from the bottom of the winch, then the other side is supposed to connect to the battery neg terminal.
 
#9 · (Edited)
#11 ·
So, it was the negative cable. It's hooked back us and everything is good now.

Thank you all for your input!
So what was causing the rattle?
 
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