Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I got a second hand Ironman winch and I want to test it prior to fitting it to a front bar. I don't have any wiring diagrams and haven't used a winch before.

How can I test it on the floor of the shed?

It has 3 connections on the top of it, red, black and yellow and a seperate thin black wire as well.

All help greatly appreciated.

does it have a control box like a warn or just the motor.

is there a threaded hole in the bottom of the motor to bolt an earth cable to.

cheers smitty

Thanks for the reply smitty, yep it does have a control box.

I just got all the wiring info from Ironman (really impressed with their service) so I can wire it up correctly. But I didn't get the hand control/switch/gun thing.

Is there a way I can test it once I have wired it up, without the hand piece?

Many thanks in advance.

are there 3 wires going into the back of the plug.

cheers smitty

There are 3 holes in the connector so I guess there are 3 wires. I'll look this morning.

all good.

one wire will be your power supply( will be connected to the same terminal as the big red cable that connects to your battery)

the other two wires will be connected to your solenoids.

firstly how long is the little black wire and is it connected to all the solenoids. if it does this is the earth for your coils for your solenoids and needs to be connected to an earth on the car or winch motor.

get your battery and jumper leads, +ve to the red lead on the control box

-ve will connect directly to the motor there should be a black cable bolted to the motor housing that does'nt go to the control box,also clamp the solenoid earths.

now its just a matter of joining the kittle power wire to one of the other wires in the plug.

cheers smitty
ps pm sent

Thanks for your help smitty and the kind offer of a phone call.

I have wired it all up as per the instructions I got from Ironman last night. Now all I have to do is see if I can get the winch drum to move.

I don't have a hand gun. The socket for the gun on the control box has 3 holes. I have checked the holes, one is connected to -ve and the other 2, once I have power applied, have 12 volts on them.

My thinking is that 1 makes the drum rotate forward and the other backwards. Would that be correct??

If so, I should be able to quickly plug some wire from the -ve pin to 1 of the other 2 pins and see the drum rotate and then move the wire to the other pin and see it rotate in the other direction. Is this correct??

Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

yep sounds good. it sounds like its earth switching.

cheers smitty

Well I wired it all up and checked it by shorting out the pins on the connector but nothing happened. I could hear the solenoids click but that was it. The motor didn't whir, whiz or womp.

I copied down how the control box is all hooked up and have noticed that there is a difference between the Ironman diagram and what I have.

How do those solenoids work? They look like a can with two connectors on the bottom and one on each side with a connection for a finer wire/cable also on the side.

If the motor is stuffed, can they be repaired???

Thanks for any help.

is your motor earthed. there should be a threaded hole in the body of the motor for a bolt to screw into.( make sure the bolt doesn't hit the armature by screwing it in to far if you put your own in)

cheers smitty

there is a way to test the motor without the control box.

Yep the body of the motor is definately earthed. It's actually where the -ve lead from the battery connects. I'm using the bolt that was in the motor so it should be OK.

How can I test the motor??

Thanks once again.

Still getting nowhere.

The motor has 4 posts on it, a main 0v post (black) a centre red post (red) a black post (black/black) and a black and yellow post (black/yellow) to connect cables to. Of these, the main earth post (black) and the red post (red) appear to be shorted, they measure 0.1 ohms when I put the meter on 'em.

Between the earth post (black) and each of the other posts (black/black and black/yellow) there is about 280 ohms. Does this sound right??

Between the two black posts (black/black and black/yellow) there is about 0 ohms. Does this sound right??

When I have the winch hooked up to the battery, I can measure 12v from the earth to the black/black and black/yellow posts, but when I short out the pins on the control box, this drops down to about 0v. Does this sound right??

I'm thinking the motor is fried??

Any help greatly appreciated.

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try this mate, your effectively bypassing the solenoid pack and testing the motor only.

the winch drum will turn one way.

to test the other way, swap the fielld wires over.

use jumper leads and make sure they dont touch anything

this is how i tested my 6hp warn motors.

cheers smitty

Thanks very much for your help mate, I really appreciate it. I was going to ring you yesterday as I was freaking out, but outers was down and I didn't have ya number.

Thanks I'll try it out now.

I reckon the motor is stuffed, it just sat there and melted the lead I had between the red and blk/blk posts.

Hmmm does'nt sound to hopeful mate.

pull the motor off

pull the armature out

pull the end cap off if you can (on the warn motors you can)

and have a look at the brushes and see if any thing has shorted out or melted together.

look for signs of melted insulation, or incorrect installation ie crushed brush wires from pushing the armature in incorrrectly.

cheers smitty

ps. theres a short there some where

Yep I'll rip it apart later on, there's gotta be a short in it. Thanks for your help mate.