Weak warn m8000 clicking?

GONOVRIT

GONOVRIT

blue collar brotherhood
Joined
Apr 10, 2005
Location
Dallas NC
I have a 3.5yr old warn M8000 that has become very weak and the solenoids are clicking. I was spooling it back in one time today and it stopped clicking and the line sped up considerably. I pulled the line back out and the clicking started again as soon as I started spooling it in. I've never got into the solenoids on a newer style winch. Any ideas??
 
GONOVRIT said:
I have a 3.5yr old warn M8000 that has become very weak and the solenoids are clicking. I was spooling it back in one time today and it stopped clicking and the line sped up considerably. I pulled the line back out and the clicking started again as soon as I started spooling it in. I've never got into the solenoids on a newer style winch. Any ideas??
Click to expand...
Sounds like a corroded connection. Clean the connections at the battery and the winch and then try it again. If that doesn't work, pull the cover off the solenoid box and see if they need cleaning. Do you have a dedicated ground wire or is it just grounded through the frame?
 
jeepinmatt said:
Sounds like a corroded connection. Clean the connections at the battery and the winch and then try it again. If that doesn't work, pull the cover off the solenoid box and see if they need cleaning. Do you have a dedicated ground wire or is it just grounded through the frame?
Click to expand...
This ^^
 
Check the solenoid pack ground. And fwiw it's been proven that contrary to popular belief, a (bare) frame ground is superior to 3-4/0 welding cable.
 
braxton357 said:
And fwiw it's been proven that contrary to popular belief, a (bare) frame ground is superior to 3-4/0 welding cable.
Click to expand...

How's that work, when the battery to chassis connection is usually a 4ga wire?

Either way, I don't think that's what he's talking about. If you bolt your winch to the chassis and think that's "grounded", you're probably going to be disappointed. Kinda like thinking that you can ground a trailer through the ball.
 
Voltage drop is current and resistance, and as it turns out even a unibody vehicle has less resistance from one end to the other than a heavy gauge stranded wire. You would add the resistance in series on the two cables. I always thought grounding to the frame was weak but looked it up, turns out competition subwoofer guys make a big deal about it. Anyway sounds like he probably has a weak solenoid control voltage. And is just weak in general.
 
braxton357 said:
Check the solenoid pack ground. And fwiw it's been proven that contrary to popular belief, a (bare) frame ground is superior to 3-4/0 welding cable.
Click to expand...

braxton357 said:
Voltage drop is current and resistance, and as it turns out even a unibody vehicle has less resistance from one end to the other than a heavy gauge stranded wire. You would add the resistance in series on the two cables. I always thought grounding to the frame was weak but looked it up, turns out competition subwoofer guys make a big deal about it. Anyway sounds like he probably has a weak solenoid control voltage. And is just weak in general.
Click to expand...

It's true, a chassis/unibody does have a lot more cross sectional area than a big cable, even with spot welded panels and seam sealer. It's also true though that chassis grounding is still inadequate if you have an undersized ground cable between the chassis and the battery, even is that cable is short.

Funny you should mention the subwoofer thing.
I used to be one of those competition subwoofer guys, 20 years ago. It wasn't my rig, I had a friend with a pro-class Cherokee that I did a lot of work for in my spare time. 8 alternators (or was it 6?) and I can't remember how many batteries. We had a lawn mower throttle cable hooked to the the engine so that we could dump it wide open when the system was "burped" during competition. It would still almost stall the engine at full throttle from alternator load with however many 10s of kW of amplifier power we were running. Everything was controlled remotely, because you obviously can't be in the vehicle at well over 160dB. Fun times. Somewhere I have some car audio mags with my picture in them, from his magazine features and some advertisements.
 
Last edited:
It's all academic bullshit, anyway. If you read the OP, Josh has a bad connection somewhere. It could be on the hot side, it could be on the ground, could be in the solenoid pack... hell, could be in the controller wiring... but the solenoids are chattering.
 
shawn said:
It's all academic bullshit, anyway. If you read the OP, Josh has a bad connection somewhere. It could be on the hot side, it could be on the ground, could be in the solenoid pack... hell, could be in the controller wiring... but the solenoids are chattering.
Click to expand...

Yeah, sounds like a bad connection. Should be easy to find, very easy with a multimeter in fact when the winch is attempting to operate.
 
shawn said:
It's all academic bullshit, anyway. If you read the OP, Josh has a bad connection somewhere. It could be on the hot side, it could be on the ground, could be in the solenoid pack... hell, could be in the controller wiring... but the solenoids are chattering.
Click to expand...
His first problem is buying warn junk. Should have gone with a proven Badlands winch and been done with it.
 
Drop it by my house and I'll deliver it to Shawn when I get done with it ;)
 
I've got 2 m8000's in my shop and neither have ever worked worth a damn. I wouldn't want to sell them to someone but have too much money in them to give them away. I'll update this when/if I get a chance to work on it.
 
shawn said:
It's all academic bullshit, anyway. If you read the OP, Josh has a bad connection somewhere. It could be on the hot side, it could be on the ground, could be in the solenoid pack... hell, could be in the controller wiring... but the solenoids are chattering.
Click to expand...

A little testy today are we? Eat a Snickers bar and lighten up Francis...
:flipoff2:
 
GONOVRIT said:
I've got 2 m8000's in my shop and neither have ever worked worth a damn. I wouldn't want to sell them to someone but have too much money in them to give them away. I'll update this when/if I get a chance to work on it.
Click to expand...
Ill trade you an offbrand 12k for both of them then? [emoji90]
 
I forgot about the winch issue since 99.9% of the time it just gets used as a suck down winch..........Then it left me in a big pickle on the trail not long ago. No clicking, spools in and out fine but hook a few thousand pounds to it and it didn't want to move. I've got to get it figured out soon as it's headed out west once again.
 
GONOVRIT said:
I forgot about the winch issue since 99.9% of the time it just gets used as a suck down winch..........Then it left me in a big pickle on the trail not long ago. No clicking, spools in and out fine but hook a few thousand pounds to it and it didn't want to move. I've got to get it figured out soon as it's headed out west once again.
Click to expand...

Sounds like when there is a need to increased amperage, the motor cannot get it. I know this was mentioned already, but likely a bad ground or corroded connector/cable. Could also be a thin/broken piece in a solenoid or weak/bad brushes or windings in the motor.
 
Fabrik8 said:
Funny you should mention the subwoofer thing.
I used to be one of those competition subwoofer guys, 20 years ago. It wasn't my rig, I had a friend with a pro-class Cherokee that I did a lot of work for in my spare time. 8 alternators (or was it 6?) and I can't remember how many batteries. We had a lawn mower throttle cable hooked to the the engine so that we could dump it wide open when the system was "burped" during competition. It would still almost stall the engine at full throttle from alternator load with however many 10s of kW of amplifier power we were running. Everything was controlled remotely, because you obviously can't be in the vehicle at well over 160dB. Fun times. Somewhere I have some car audio mags with my picture in them, from his magazine features and some advertisements.
Click to expand...

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=d04f26c00969a6a6bba8c8881e231743&oe=59F5BB72

I used to do a thing or two with those, too :)

Remember quite well the dozen-paralleled runs of 1/0 or more...that'd do some scary things if buss bars touched the wrong places.
 
Just to add to all the other shit you now have to think about in your winch system...Josh, don't forget that carbon spots in the chassis metal can cause poor grounds...


:D
 
I’ve went through the grounds several times now. Replaced the winch contactor. I won’t be using it for a long time now but I’d love to have someone else look at it or run it. I’m over it.
 
GONOVRIT said:
I’ve went through the grounds several times now. Replaced the winch contactor. I won’t be using it for a long time now but I’d love to have someone else look at it or run it. I’m over it.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it's shot. I'll give you $50/ea for the pair.
 
Got it loose from the rig? If so, bring it over one evening this week. If not, I might can swing by at some point.
 
Back
Top