Calling all winch guru's

I installed a Smittybilt XRC8 winch yesterday, it seems decent enough for what I would need a winch for and was more in line with my budget. It was somewhat of a tight fit on my OR-Fab bumper and I had to modify the control box mount.

One thing that seemed odd to me, there is an arrow shaped decal that says "Spool wire rope onto drum in this direction".....Out of the box, the cable is wound just the opposite.

Line speed in is noticeably faster than line speed out with the cable wound as it is.....does this sound right to you winch guru's?, or should the directional line speed be just the opposite? Maybe they placed the decal on backwards?

After I got it hooked up, it seems to work fine and I pulled the XJ across the yard to seat the cable nice and tight.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ge/XRC8001.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ge/XRC8003.jpg

Who cares about the sticker, what's your controller say it should be doing? Doesnt your controller have "in" and "out" on it?
Maybe I misunderstood the question.

Ray H said:

Who cares about the sticker, what's your controller say it should be doing? Doesnt your controller have "in" and "out" on it?
Maybe I misunderstood the question.

Click to expand...

Yes the controller has "in" and "out" and it's function rolls the cable opposite what the directional decal says. "In" rotates against the direction the arrow indicates the cable should be spooled. Line speed should tell me the cable is winding correctly despite what the decal says if someone can answer which would run faster....IN or OUT.

I wouldnt worry about the sticker as long as the controller direction matches what the winch is doing. The only way that could be messed up is if you have the red power lead hooked to the Neg battery terminal (not sure about this one) or Smittybilt has something wired backwards internally.
Maybe someone with a Smittybilt will speak up but on my Warn the cable comes off the bottom of the drum. I thought they were all pretty standard in that.
Did you get an owners manual with the winch?

EDIT: Looks to me like your sticker is on the wrong side of the drum.
http://www.4wd.com/productdetails.aspx?jeep-sid=195&plID=0&partID=12286

Ray's correct, it wound backwards.

The wire rope needs to be centered in the fairlead as it winds around the drum. In other words, if the wire feeds from the top you would be putting pressure on the upper roller.

You're probalby right about the sticker being on the wrong side, the cable comes off the bottom of the drum. It is just one of those "what the?" dumb things. I just look at a friends Milemarker, it comes off the bottom as well.

FWIW, I have one these too, and my sticker also appears to be on the right hand side. Odd.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11221004&whse=BC&topnav=national&browse=&lang=en-US

Looks like Costco sells MileMarker too.