YAWWWQ (Yet Another Warn Winch Wiring Question)

Help me, Landyzone Kenobi, you're my only hope...

I have a Warn 25314 with an M8000 control box. I have been driving myself insane poring over wiring diagrams trying to rewire it (it was removed to re-mount it would have ripped itself off the bull bar mount on first use with the previous owner's installation, which would be suboptimal)

I think I'm really close - I've currently got it wired as per the usual diagram you find everywhere:


So far, so good. A, F1, and F2 are connected correctly to the winch motor, white/black/brown (green in my installation) from the remote are connected properly to the solenoids as shown and to the remote control cable connector box.

The problem is the brown/green wire. I've hooked it up as indicated to the solenoids, but there's a loose end of the brown wire leading out as per the above diagram.

I found a diagram which claims the brown wire is the remote ground, and connects as follows:


However...the remote plug only has 3 connectors (black/green/white).

Before I blow short something out, where does this extra green/brown wire go?

Any ideas welcome...

Also, while we're at it, are you supposed to connect the winch motor itself to the motor ground? Some diagrams show the motor separately connected to ground, but I can't find a ground terminal on mine, and the original installation (which worked fine) only had +/ground cables coming from battery.

The motor ground is a (M8 usually) bolt into the casing directly opposite the A, F1 and F2 terminals. It doesn't look like a terminal, just either a hole or a bolt head on the opposite side of the casing .. I ground mine directly to the battery with a large cross-secton cable and the solenoid to this point on the motor.

If the winch motor is ground to the chassis then connect the solenoid pack to the chassis, but frankly this isn't a good way to connect the motor, best way is a large cable direct back to - on the battery. Then the solenoid can be grounded much more positively to the motor ground point and battery in one connection.

Thanks - I will check the motor again for a ground attachment (couldn't see one).

My ground cable also attaches directly to the battery.

So - ground cable to motor ground attachment. What of the motor ground wire that attaches to F2 in the diagram above, though? Is that what you mean by connecting the solenoid to the ground?

So, F2 on solenoid case -> ground attachment on motor -> battery ground? Sorry if I’m being dense.

Sorry, when I said 'solenoid ground' I meant the brown wire on your picture marked motor ground. I stopped using solenoid packs a long while ago and use an Albright now .. Albright ..

DONOT connect a wire between F2 and ground ... There isn't a ground wire that attaches to F2.

A motor has 4 connections, one is the A post, then F1 and F2 are the field coils with the ground being on the opposite side of the motor and is usually a threaded hole with a bolt into it.

Power to the solenoid pack comes directly via a large cable from the positive side of the battery. One cable from the solenoid pack goes to A one to F1 and one to F2. These are large cables 'cos they can carry large currents. There should also be a large cable between the motor ground point and the battery earth. The only other connection between solenoid pack and motor is the motor ground wire, which attaches to the motor ground point with the motor ground cable. So motor ground can have one large cable and one wire to it, the other motor connections only have one large cable connection, NO other wires!!!

What you have are 4 separate solenoids, each with 2 'contactors' (larger connections) to allow high current to pass, and 2 smaller connections that are the signal wires. The contactors are arranged in the grouping to allow power to flow to the field coils (F1, F2) for winch in and winch out. The wiring connections are arranged with the signal wires around the outside, which energise the contactors as appropriate. There are four ground connections altogether, centred to keep them together, all using brown wire which then needs to go to ground and the closest most reliable ground point is the ground point of the motor .. which is itself grounded directly to the battery.

This diagram shows it more easily, Ground wire being black in this pic ...

Thank you, sir, I'll try to have a look at this tomorrow - I have a bit of a color mess, looks like.

I was going to try today, and the biggest damn storm of all time came down, and I spent all evening digging drainage trenches through my yard to get the torrents of water away from my walls, and of course the Landy doesn't fit all the way under my carport, right when I was going to try and fix the horrible leaky bodge job of new door seals I just did..FML.

I'll report back tomorrow.

Bonza, it worked! You are a star. I was working off the weird wiring job the previous owner did, which somehow worked but made no sense. When the shop welded me a non-insanely broken winch bumper attachment, it got all mixed up.

I cleaned up and redid the wiring as per the solenoid pack manual - your explanation helped me make sense of it. Thanks!!

You found the motor ground OK then?

Well done, by the way.