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Adding a Winch
How to customize your own ATV
Do you enjoy playing in the mud with your ATV? If so, have you ever been stuck in the mud? And how difficult was it to extract your ATV from the mud? Wish you had a winch on your ATV to make it easier to get out of the mud or even a snow bank during the winter?
Adding a winch to your ATV is a great accessory for anyone that wants a little more assurance they can go riding and have the ability to get out of sticky situations.
A winch for your ATV can run any were from $50 to $500 depending on the manufacture, model and accessories you desire. Before purchasing a winch, do some homework! Don’t just rush out and pickup the first winch you see or get talked into purchasing an accessory before reviewing all your options.
There are several good winch manufactures on the market today. Keep in mind you’re getting what you pay for – and what do I mean by that? No offence to any manufacture, but a $50 winch on an 800lb ATV is going to burn out well before you get the machine unstuck. And of course a $500 winch on a 250lb ATV is serious over kill. So what do you do?
First – read the owners manual for your ATV. It will tell you the dry weight of the machine. Then if you have changed the stock tires to something larger more aggressive, then take a guess at the weight of the new rims and tires (~45lb each) – then (no offense) get on the scale and measure your fat butt adding that weight to the total. Finally consider how many gallons of gasoline, accessories, clothing, extra fuel, a cooler and its contents and add that weight to the total. This would give you a good idea how many pounds of "pulling power" you should be looking for when purchasing that winch.
Next, again – read the owners manual and you may have to talk to your local dealer to determine where they usually mount the winch on your style of ATV. The rule is – the lower to the ground you mount the winch the better "pulling of the mud" power you will have and less stress will be applied to the machines frame. Let me explain:
Let’s say you’re stuck in the mud – you have a new winch mounted to the top of the front rack on your ATV. You tie the cable to a tree in front of you and turn on the winch. Instead of pulling you ATV up and out of the mud – the winch will force your ATV down and further into the mud and apply pressure to the bank edge. So it’s best to mount the winch as low on the ATV as possible. When turned on – the winch will pull your ATV up and out of the mud – reducing the stress on the ATVs frame. Some winch manufactures and/or your local dealer sell adapter mounting plates just for this purpose.
Now that you’re fully confused – let’s talk about the time and cost associated with installing an ATV winch. Your local dealer may charge around $90 an hour to install your new accessory. It may take then 2 hours to accomplish this task. But, if you’re like me and like to tinker around in the garage, there is no reason you can’t try installing it your self. If you get stuck, then by all means take the ATV and parts to your local dealer to have then finish the installation.
Installing a WARN Winch Kit
Let’s say your going to give it a try – don’t rush it. Your dealer may say they can install it in an hour or two – so it takes you four hours. For the purposes of this article – we are going to install 2500lb WARN winch on a Honda Rincon 650 ATV. So what did we do?
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First we took a look at another ATV that already had a winch installed on it. This helped us figure out what plastic panels and bolts to remove to get the winch mounted in the correct location. Then we opened the winch kit and laid out all the pieces and parts on a table – and located the installation booklet. Keep in mind the instructions are going to be generic and not specific for your model ATV. This is going to take a bit of puzzle working to figure out…
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Next we rolled the ATV into the garage and made sure the area was clean to begin the work. Also we made sure there was a clean area to place each of the plastic panels and plenty of cups to put bolts and clips in to keep them organized.
Keep in mind you have to put your ATV back together again – so label each of the cups and even make your self a quick map – it will help!
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Our first step was mounting the "mounting plate" that the winch will bolt to later. The mounting plate is usually purchased from the dealer for the style of ATV you own. The mounting plate needs to be installed first. This plate will take the brunt of the stress placed on the ATV’s frame. It’s usually designed to be mounted in a specific location on the ATV and comes with its own instruction sheet. Of course there is nothing stopping you from constructing your own mounting.
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Next, we eased the winch up on to the mounting plate. Keep in mind the winch needs to be mounted in a specific orientation. Locate the clutch release leaver and electrical connection points. And note how the cable is strung on the drum – it should unroll from the top of the spool. Installing the winch in the wrong orientation could damage it and/or your ATV. All this info should be in your instruction sheets. (I’m sorry, but please read your instruction manual as not all winch kits are the same).
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As you bold the winch to the mounting plate, make sure to use the lock washers included in the kit. If you did not receive lock washers – then I would strongly suggest purchasing lock nuts or lock Tite® and use a generous amount. These bolts will be the stress points for the winch. You do not want them to come loose over time. And as always use the proper tools to tighten the bolts down. And check that nothing will come into contact with the winch as the suspension is tested.
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Now that the winch is mounted, take a look at the electrical wiring diagram. Usually the kits come with different color wires which help you to know where they need to be connected. In our kit – we need to connect the yellow and blue wires to the correct terminals on the winch – then feed them through the ATVs frame to the rear of the machine where the battery is located. You may need to do something similar.
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Take care as you feed the heavy electrical wiring through the ATV – keep the wires as far from any heat sources as possible. Route the wires away from any moving parts. Keep in mind your ATVs suspension moves up and down. Will any of these motions pinch the wires? Use heavy tie wraps to secure the wires to existing electrical harnesses. If you get a chance, take a look at someone else’s ATV to see how they did it. And don’t be in any hurry to finish – you can always continue again the next day or weekend.
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When installing a WARN winch kit on a Honda Rincon – there is a "Relay Module" that needs to be mounted on the machine. It handles all the power transferred to the winch motor from the battery. This is usually mounted behind the air box of the ATV. You may have some type of module that also needs to be mounted on your machine. Again check your installation instructions and/or a pre-installed unit at your dealer.
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Finally there maybe some electrical that needs to be done. You may have to connect a couple of wires to either the accessory plug or ignition switch. In our case we needed to connect a lead to the ignition switch to prevent the winch from working when the key was taken out. On another model – the wires to the forward/reverse switch needed to be wrapped with electrical tape to keep the connectors dry.
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When you are done – hopefully everything works properly. Go ahead and unroll all the cable on the drum – then have someone pull on the cable while it’s rolled back up. This will ensure that the cable is not bound up the first time you need to use it.
After that – enjoy the mud, snow or what ever you desire to ride through.
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