6 month old winch just goes click?

:bawl:hey guys, i have a superwinch lp8500 that i've only used like twice, and i pulled out some cable and tried to use the winch to wind it back up. it worked for about 10 seconds and quit like a toy with dead batteries. the battery on the jeep is good and the motor was running. after it stopped, i tried to move it again, and now it just goes click, no movement. any ideas? i don't have money to get new solenoids, but the winch is still under warranty, so i'm trying to see if i can fix it before i have to take it off my jeep...

try tightening up the connections to the battery

i did that... there is some corrosion on the terminals, so when i stop bleeding i'll prolly go try to clean them up a bit... this winch came with a breaker switch strip thingy that bolts to the battery terminal...

Could be a broken/loose magnet as well. I just had this problem today on my 3 year old Smittybilt. Did the exact same thing you describe.

~James

how did you fix it? it worked great the two times i got to use it wheelin', and i've taken the cable in and out a few times in between, thinking that would ensure that it would work when i need it to? well that's what i was doing this time as well, before i went to wooly's on sunday.

thechief86 said:

how did you fix it? it worked great the two times i got to use it wheelin', and i've taken the cable in and out a few times in between, thinking that would ensure that it would work when i need it to? well that's what i was doing this time as well, before i went to wooly's on sunday.

Click to expand...

I took mine back to 4 Wheel parts and they hooked me up with a deal on a new winch since mine was still under the "mechanical warranty", but not the electrical warranty.

Other than that, I was going to try to buy parts to fix it, but the motor costs more than a new winch (which is kinda lame, but now I have a new, updated version)

It may not be whats wrong with yours, you will have to dig into to see. I have made probably 50 REALLY hard pulls with my cheap little smittybilt, its been underwater and mud multiple times, frozen a few times, full of German road salt, etc etc. It was time for something to give up the ghost.

I am putting the new smittybilt in the rear, and my rebuilt Warn 8724 up front. Hopefully the new smitty will last a little longer than the old, but it has paid for itself about 100 times over.

Pull the motor apart. If its clicking (the solenoids) and not turning, you have motor issues. Either a burnt armature, broken brushes, magnet issues or a combination of sorts. I would stick a volt meter on the two lugs on the motor, when you push the button and you hear the click, if you get 12 volts to the lugs, then your motor or drivetrain is screwed, if you dont get any voltage, it could be a relay/solenoid problem, but if its clicking they are usually working.

Good luck with it, but first you gotta find out whats wrong with it. (or if you are ever in the Atlanta area, I would be glad to figure out whats wrong with it. They are pretty simple machines)

~James

hey thanks man. i'm gonna call superwinch, i bought this thing in february, so it should still be under warranty...

oooooooook, so my superwinch had a factory defect where water runs down the battery cables and fills the motor with water. they're sending me a new motor that won't have this defect! woot! so this means i won't have a working winch to take to wooly's though....

Atleast it wont cost you anything.

Glad you are getting it fixed.

~James

yep! thanks for your advice!

My 8500 superwinch did the same thing and it was only months old too. Except after it went click it shot all the fluids out of the two bolt heads at the top of the winch. Quadratec took the superwinch back and let me pay the difference on a warn m8000. If you have the oppurtunity its way worth the extra money.

i don't have the money to do that, and superwinch is sending me a motor for free, so i'm gonna hafta roll that way. the guy said they redesigned the motors so that won't happen anymore, and the warranty is still good until february 2011.