Got the winch hooked up and it works great I got it hooked to the black/red wire into the switch and you can hear the solenoid click on with the key. My problem comes with the battery. It had died on me yesterday when the winch grounded to the chasis. Now today I got everything working and when I went to start it up the battery was to weak to turn it over. I pull started it and let it run for a while and thought that would charge the battery up. Well, after about ten minutes I shut it off tried the starter and turned right over. Figured great things are good. I then hooked up the plow and took it out into the parking lot to just test the winch out with it. It did great and I pulled into the garage shut her down. I went to start it right away and the battery was to weak again. Apparently using the winch is draining the battery to much to restart the quad. All my lights work fine but its to weak to turn it over. I have come up with two possibilities and was hoping you guys could help out. 1. My battery is sacked out (It looks original 2000 sportsman) it will not go any weaker sitting there but the winch just drains it. 2. The second possibility is the winch itself. The end with the contacts on the winch is just barely touching the radiator gaurd. The contacts are no where near the chasis but the winch bolt that holds the end cap on is. Can this ground out the winch and cause the battery to drain? The winch works great just kills my battery if I actually use the switch at all. I can take the bumper off and cut some of the guard away but I would prefer not to do this as it is a pain in the but to tear it apart. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give as much info as possible. Jay

 

It sounds like your battery is having a hard time keeping a charge. You could just replace the battery and see if the winch drains the new battery. You could try to charge the old battery and resist using the winch until you determine if the battery will keep a charge. It's hard to understand the exact position and how it's touching the radiator. Can you get some electric tape around the contact points or a piece of rubber in between to keep it from touching. Have you had a problems with the battery before you installed the winch? Maybe the battery was weak and the winch pushed it over the edge. (Don't ever use your winch with the motor turned off.)

 

As long as I don't use the winch the battery will hold its charge. I haven't used the winch with out the quad running but using the winch at idle instantly drains the battery of so much juice it won't turn the quad over if I shut it off. Its going to be a hassle though if I have to run around for 10 minutes everytime I use the winch just to charge the battery up. I am going to see if the electroylete is low maybe the battery is not getting a full charge just enough to turn the motor over. To get anything in between the winch and the radiator gaurd I will have to taket he whole tube bumper apart so I will just cut away a small portion of the gaurd. It is the part that wraps around the upright not the screen. I was hoping to have it done by now but it will give me something to do. Before the winch I never had problems with the quad electrically. The battery never gave me problems but the thing starts instantly everytime so I have never had to work the battery hard just a little tap of the start button. So the battery could be worn out and I wouldn't have known it. Jay

 

Thanks for the help. I ended up pulling the battery and replacing it. The old battery wouldn't take a charge. The new battery fired the quad right up. Jay