Arctic Offroad Forums

I have 12 k warn winch that stopped spooling out. Not sure on what to do . my thought is to take it to ak electric builders and let them clean and analyze it. If anyone has any suggestions i would appreciate it before i haul it in to ak electric. Pics for reference. (I know nothing about this winch setup)

That looks pretty crusty, when Chris brought his there I think it cost almost as much as a new winch. Make sure you get a estimate before hand to make sure it's worth rebuilding.

If if you are going to do it yourself they make a Electric cleaner, check the brushes and make sure they don't need to be replaced, those are usually a cheap wear part.

I'd say a good cleaning is in order. When you say it won't spool out is that under power only or free spool as well? Does the solenoid click? Have you checked if it's good? Is the switch good?

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My controller is good. (I have two ive tried it on) and no bueno

akram Wrote:I'd say a good cleaning is in order. When you say it won't spool out is that under power only or free spool as well? Does the solenoid click? Have you checked if it's good? Is the switch good?

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It spooled in great. Quit spooling out about 2 yeas ago. I dont think there is a solenoid. Just a direct contact (see pic). There was a click but no action

88XJ Wrote:That looks pretty crusty, when Chris brought his there I think it cost almost as much as a new winch. Make sure you get a estimate before hand to make sure it's worth rebuilding.

If if you are going to do it yourself they make a Electric cleaner, check the brushes and make sure they don't need to be replaced, those are usually a cheap wear part.

What kinda cleaner are we talking bout?

Area you going to be home tomorrow? I can swing by.

did your winch have a black box attached to the motor?

other than that motor needs a good cleaning it sounds like your solenoid pack is bad.

It should have solenoids. The wiring on the remote and that switch aren't going to handle the load that motor is going to draw. Your remote is just used to activate the solenoids to send power to the right terminal.

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12,000 or 1,200? It looks pretty small to be a 12K. My old 8k Warn had a fairly large black cover with "W" stamped on it for the solenoid sometimes remote mounted.

78calico Wrote:Area you going to be home tomorrow? I can swing by.

Im home. Ill call ya in a bit

Should be a 12k winch

ak_petey Wrote:Should be a 12k winch

I see, you had already taken it apart. Looking at the top picture it looks more like my little winch with the motor on one side and nothing on the other. That makes a lot more sense now.

I took my 16k to Electric rebuilders it cost me $800 for them to "clean and service it". I was not happy about the price, but it was 1/2 the cost of buying another 16k winch.

Ole came over and verified my reverse polarity situation.
spool out was spool in, and spool in was spool out. He showed me the correct wiring and that fixed that issue.

The motor had a heat fuse that was discovered to have blown; preventing it from spooling in (now that i corrected the polarity) . I hard wired the heat fuse ( bypassed it) and the solenoids seemed to work both ways.
However the problem continues.
I hooked up the solenoid ,which worked. But it failed to work when everything was hooked up. I could hear the solenoids clicking but spooling in seemed to make a significantly weaker clicking sound.

I figured i would throw my ohm meter on it and check the resistance but i couldnt find it for about 20 minutes of looking and discovered i needed new batteries as i left it on last time i used it. .. Great!

So i think a bad solenoid was only part of the problem.

Winch is fixed! After considering the info ole (78CALICO) helped me with/trouble shooting, i narrowed the issue down to the wiring harness. Where the controller plugs in. It now Works like a charm.


Ended up replacing the heat fuse (is burnt up) and battery leads from solenoids to the motor. The new cables are long enough to swap around if needed. They were a bit strectched before, which made it difficult to mount the solenoid box without the controller plug running into the hood.
Thanks ole!

Oh. This fix costed about 100 all together considering the new terminal cables.
Now tomorrow ill finish fitting my chains if time and motivation allows

nice .now to get that trailer beaver tailed , new ramps on and winch set-up