On Thursday I removed my hand crank trailer winch and replaced it with a Superwinch LT 2000. WOW! etrailer.com has these for sale for $89.99. A hand cranked 2000 pound winch costs as much! It took a bit of engineering to wire this as they are meant to be attached to the front of an ATV or dune buggy to winch it out of a stuck situation and the wiring harness is only a few feet long. Here's a list of the items I purchased to complete the installation.
From Lowe's;
1. 30 feet of 8-2 romex wire. This is two insulated lengths of 8 gauge wire and an uninsulated ground wire enclosed in sheathing.
2. a 1/2 id rubber grommet.
3. two wing nuts to attach wiring to motor on winch.
4. Shrink tubing.
From auto parts store;
1. four 8 gauge wire terminals with closed "eye" to attach wire to motor terminals.
Now the installation. First I removed the old hand winch and installed the new electric winch on the trailer winch tower. It bolted into the holes already on the winch tower. The wiring harness that comes with the winch has 2 sets of wires, about 4 feet long. One set attaches to the winch motor, the other to the vehicle battery terminals. Obviously this wasn't enough wire to run the length of my vehicle . I drilled a hole in a safe place on the driver's side of the firewall in the engine compartment of my Blazer and installed the rubber grommet in the hole. Then I routed the romex cable from the battery area, through the grommet, and along the door sill next to the driver's seat. I secured the romex to the floor with half round cable clamps and sheet metal screws. Very unobtrusive and secure. Then routed the romex to the rear of the vehicle. I crimped a terminal to both positive and negative romex wires and attached the positive end to the positive terminal on my alternator, and grounded the other wire to the fender well.At the other end of the romex run I cut off the factory installed wire terminals on the winch wiring harness leads going to the battery and spliced the romex wires to them by soldering and then shrink tubing the solder connections, then wrapped the whole thing with 3 wraps of electrical tape. I made sure to have enough romex/wiring harness to reach half way down the length of the trailer should there be a need to be there while loading the boat. Then I attached the wiring harness wires leading to the winch motor using the wing nuts instead of hex nuts provided with the winch. The wire leads to the winch motor MUST be attached before launching the boat to operate winch, then removed to store the winch control onside the vehicle after launching. When recovering the boat simply attach the two wires to the winch motor with the wing nuts, attach hook to bow eye and winch in cable at the touch of a button to load boat,then remove the wires again by removing the wing nuts and removing the wires to store control in vehicle.The winch control has 2 buttons, one for feeding cable out, one for retrieving cable. It works GREAT!!!! Smooth and easy trailer winching at the touch of a button!!I can now winch my boat onto the trailer from next to the trailer in the water, from the back of my Blazer tow vehicle, or even from the bow of my boat! By the way, with my short S-10 Blazer tow vehicle, I had 5 feet of romex wire left over. Depending on vehicle length, more may be needed for other applications.
I completed this entire installation from beginning to end, including the brain storming, in 3 hours.
__________________
~Outdoor-Fishing~N.A.F.C.~B.A.S.S.~BoatU.S.~N.R.A.~A.M.A.~
From Lowe's;
1. 30 feet of 8-2 romex wire. This is two insulated lengths of 8 gauge wire and an uninsulated ground wire enclosed in sheathing.
2. a 1/2 id rubber grommet.
3. two wing nuts to attach wiring to motor on winch.
4. Shrink tubing.
From auto parts store;
1. four 8 gauge wire terminals with closed "eye" to attach wire to motor terminals.
Now the installation. First I removed the old hand winch and installed the new electric winch on the trailer winch tower. It bolted into the holes already on the winch tower. The wiring harness that comes with the winch has 2 sets of wires, about 4 feet long. One set attaches to the winch motor, the other to the vehicle battery terminals. Obviously this wasn't enough wire to run the length of my vehicle . I drilled a hole in a safe place on the driver's side of the firewall in the engine compartment of my Blazer and installed the rubber grommet in the hole. Then I routed the romex cable from the battery area, through the grommet, and along the door sill next to the driver's seat. I secured the romex to the floor with half round cable clamps and sheet metal screws. Very unobtrusive and secure. Then routed the romex to the rear of the vehicle. I crimped a terminal to both positive and negative romex wires and attached the positive end to the positive terminal on my alternator, and grounded the other wire to the fender well.At the other end of the romex run I cut off the factory installed wire terminals on the winch wiring harness leads going to the battery and spliced the romex wires to them by soldering and then shrink tubing the solder connections, then wrapped the whole thing with 3 wraps of electrical tape. I made sure to have enough romex/wiring harness to reach half way down the length of the trailer should there be a need to be there while loading the boat. Then I attached the wiring harness wires leading to the winch motor using the wing nuts instead of hex nuts provided with the winch. The wire leads to the winch motor MUST be attached before launching the boat to operate winch, then removed to store the winch control onside the vehicle after launching. When recovering the boat simply attach the two wires to the winch motor with the wing nuts, attach hook to bow eye and winch in cable at the touch of a button to load boat,then remove the wires again by removing the wing nuts and removing the wires to store control in vehicle.The winch control has 2 buttons, one for feeding cable out, one for retrieving cable. It works GREAT!!!! Smooth and easy trailer winching at the touch of a button!!I can now winch my boat onto the trailer from next to the trailer in the water, from the back of my Blazer tow vehicle, or even from the bow of my boat! By the way, with my short S-10 Blazer tow vehicle, I had 5 feet of romex wire left over. Depending on vehicle length, more may be needed for other applications.
I completed this entire installation from beginning to end, including the brain storming, in 3 hours.
__________________
~Outdoor-Fishing~N.A.F.C.~B.A.S.S.~BoatU.S.~N.R.A.~A.M.A.~