Polaris Ranger is a beast on the road, and sure it comes with some extraordinary features. One of those is the latest winch installment kit that comes with it built-in.
If you don’t know about the parts of your ranger and what each of them is assigned to do, then installing a winch on a Polaris Ranger can make you swear like a pirate.
In this follow-along guide, we will distribute the installment process into smaller and simpler tasks that a two-year-old can follow.
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Installing Winch On A Polaris Ranger In 10 Steps
A Polaris Ranger is born to hold a winch like its baby. The following steps will teach you all the basics along with some pro tips.
Step 1: Disconnect the Battery
The first thing you want while installing a winch is to get grilled alive. To prevent that, you want to disconnect the battery. This is to make sure that the battery doesn’t form a circuit while you are working and electrocute you into oblivion.
To disconnect the battery, you will need to lift the passenger seat up of your ranger. You will be met with a storage unit, just grab it by the edge, and it should come off easily. There you can find the battery.
Take a wrench of a suitable size and unscrew the battery key that will loosen a socket. As it comes off, you can either take it away, or you can put a piece of dry clothing or other insulating agents between the key and the body of the battery. This is to prevent chances of electrical activity.
Step 2: Remove the Hood
In the next step, you will need to remove the front hood of your Polaris Ranger. You should see two lateral latches on the upper surface of the hood, just rotate them once, and your hood should be easily yanked off.
Step 3: Remove the Front Grill
It’s no BBQ grill. It’s a vehicular grill that is held on your ranger by a couple of locking clips. Just like the previous steps, you will need to rotate the locking clips to free the front grill.
Kindly remember that there can be two to four locking clips depending on the model. As the grill comes off, put it away.
Step 4: Remove Cup Holder and Bracket
Get back up into the cabin and take a wrench. Loosen up the screws on the base that holds your cup holder. You might also see a few push pins that you need to unlock. Then grab the cup holder by the margin and take it off.
In the meantime, your bracket should be free as well. Use a torque screw of a suitable size to take the bracket apart.
Step 5: Remove Bumper
If you are getting tired of undressing your car as you keep removing stuff, we promise you this is the last step of removal. Your bumper should be taken off to access the range that lies behind the bumper.
Four bolts hold the bumper in place. Again, take a wrench to them and liberate your bumper to expose the real stuff that you will connect your winch to.
Step 6: Auto Fairlead Installation
As your bumper is gone now, you will need to install the winch fairlead along with the backer plate. The backer plate looks something like the letter U, and it goes behind the front bumper assemblage. Remember that the backer plate should be put in a way that the convex portion faces upwards.
You will want to attach the fairlead in front and have it in place as you lock it together with the backer plate. The lead wire should be coming off from the right side.
There should be a sticker as well, instructing you about the right direction it should be facing.
Step 7: Hang the Winch
Now you are going to hang the winch from a metal bar on the front of your vehicle.
Pro tip: take the wire hanging from the winch and put it through a tiny gap intervening between the winch and the lower bar. This will work as a support.
Then you will need to take four bolts to secure the winch onto the vehicle. Note that the smaller two go on top while the larger two go on, the lower part of the winch.
Step 8: Connecting Battery Cable
This is where things get electrical. If you are someone who hates wires and can’t be bothered to get mangled by them, we got you. This step involves only two pairs of wires. Firstly, take the battery cables (the fat long ones) and insert them through a place behind the front stabilizer bar. Remember to do it in a vertical direction.
Then as it goes in the bonnet, you will clip them with a Christmas tree clip to fasten them in position. After that, you will need to connect it to the battery cables to the terminal bars. Remember that the red-capped part is connected to the positive terminal and the black pin to the undersurface of the terminal bars.
Hold up, there’s another thing to connect. Locate the harness connection of your vehicle and connect it with the harness connector of your winch. As you hear a click, you can be sure that it’s placed perfectly.
Step 9: Install the Wireless Receiver
Of course, everything is wireless nowadays. Your winch is controlled by a remote controller, and it is going to need a receiver to locate signals. Also, your receiver is going to be placed in the front cab area, so you might need to drill the area beforehand to ease the insertion of screws.
After you have placed the receiver in place, take their connectors (another pair of thick wires) and put them through the bulk of the vehicle, one at a time. As it enters the dashboard, it should be connected to another harness connection of the vehicle. Tips to recognize: this piece looks like several wires converging in one place.
Step 10: The Finishing Touch
Disengage the rope from the winch and feed about a foot of rope into the fair lead of your detached bumper. Then put the bumper and the front grill back in place, and fasten it with the bolts.
Afterward, you will loop the free edge of the rope through a magnetic stop. The fat portion of the rope should be facing the sky. And for the magnetic rope, the flat surface should be facing the rope while the beveled part faces the metal hook.
Final Words
After the completion of the tenth step of this guide, your winch should be perfectly installed on your vehicle. Now, you can now operate it with remote-controlled instruction (the wireless system comes with the Polaris Winch lineup kit).
You should no longer feel the need to pull chunks of hair off your head with boiling rage while trying to install a winch.
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