Up until recently my winch was working good, I did notice it was getting progressively slower to spool in or I would have to move the switch to the 'neutral' position back to in to get the cable back into the winch chunk by chunk

Anyway, fast forward too today the winch wouldn't work at all. I pulled the switch off and using a multimeter found it wasn't getting juice so i used another battery and jumpered some wires to the positive and neg leads. The winch worked good. So , ive determined it has to either be the wiring or the round dealio by the battery (solenoid?). The terminals on the solenoid look rusty and probably arent making a very good connection if any. Iirc there was two leads on the solenoid (same guage as the wire going to the switch) and one very small wire coming off the solenoid. If i were to pop these off and could I clean them off with brake clean? Is there anyway to check the solenoid itself?

 

Assuming your battery has checked ok , First thing I would do is clean the wires/ connections on the solenoid , if that doesn't cure it change the solenoid out , the internal contacts are probably deteriorating .

 

Plus if you have that old funky rotary switch mounted on the fenders or rack like most did during this year model,they were a pain also on the connections. Open to the elements and would corrode up fast. Had to tear a bunch of these open and clean up wiring and just glob on electrical grease.http://www.ebay.com/itm/WARN-36015-ATV-Quad-Rotary-Butterfly-Switch-Control-Winch-A2000-Selector-/361259760890?hash=item541cc27cfa&vxp=mtr

 

the old grey rotary switches are very expensive to replace as well.