Help Spooling Rope On New Winch

[pygmyowl]

I have never had a winch before and I'm having a problem getting my new synthetic rope to spool on to my new Warn M8000. I just installed an ARB Sahara Bar on my 2006 Tundra with the M8000 and Viking Aluminium fairlead. As you look at the bumper/winch from the front of the truck, the clutch handle is on the left, and the electrical connections to the winch on your right, which is the same side that the battery to my truck is on.

I realize that the new line should be spooled on under the winch drum. The problem is when I use the remote and press the symbol to take in the rope, the rope gets pulled in over the winch drum, and like wise when I press the symbol to take rope out, or free spool after moving the clutch, the rope takes out over the drum.

With the new rope in a pile in front of the bumper, if I press the symbol to spool out rope, the rope will spool in under the drum as it should, and I guess I could just do this, which is basically operate the winch just opposite of what the symbols on the remote indicate, but could get a bit confusing.

What confuses me even more, is I'm pretty sure I hooked up the electrical connections right, as the little arrow on the winch displaying the correct direction to spool rope in (pointing towards cab of truck), has the drum turning in the correct direction when I press the remote symbol to spool rope in, except as stated above, this spools rope in over the top of the drum.

I believe that if I unbolted the winch, and swapped ends, with the clutch lever now on the right and electrical connections on the left, that then the arrow on the drum would now be pointing down and the remote symbols would now correspond correctly, with the rope spooling in under the drum as it should.

I mounted the winch with the idea of having the shortest run for my electrical cable hook up to my battery, which is also on the right when facing the front of the truck, and the way ARB has you mount the winch control box, such that the electrical cables exit facing right, all makes sense to mount the winch the way I did.

Is there any harm just running the winch using the remote to spool the rope under the drum as it is supposed to, even though I will have to remember to press the opposite symbol on the remote to get the winch to spool properly, or should I spend half a day swapping the ends of winch, or is there something else I screwed up on?

One bewildered dude, any help appreciated.

Scott MacButch

 

[GeoTracker90]

Here is a picture of the Warn M8000 winch. Just going off of this picture you should have the winch installed with the electrical connections/winch motor on the passenger side and the engagement lever on the driver side of the vehicle. If you mounted it opposite of this and wired it up correctly you should have just the poblem that you are describing. The extra foot or two of wire will have no affect on the winch's performance as long as the power cables are sized correctly.

Good luck and congrats on the new winch set up. Sounds nice.

Mike

 

[pygmyowl]

Thanks for the help Mike - as I expected I mounted the winch backwards, I feel like a fool but some dude on Tundrasolutions.com had pictures of his install and he did the same thing, only he forgot to mention the screw up.

It is going to be a real pain to switch, getting the bolts to threads on ARB's square nuts takes for ever, the first bolt took me 45 min. - oh well I better get going on it this afternoon.

Here is a picture of my lame install.

 

[lowenbrau]

Yeah. you have to change it. Otherwise you'll kill the brake/ overheat the drum/melt the cable. These things power past the brake in reverse.

 

[outsidr]

One last tip, if you are using synthetic, tie a clove hitch on the end of the drum and wrap the tailing end under the wrap before you snug it up. Also, don't forget to load the synthetic line on the drum under a mild load. By hooking to a tree or something and winching to it you flatten the synthetic over on the drum making strong layers. The benefit will come on your first pull. If you do not do this, the line has a tendency to dig down in between the wraps and stick or abraid in between the layers when under load if it is not wound on tight from the start! If you have ever used synthetic fishing line it is the same deal...