You probably use your winch in a variety of activities since it is a great tool used to wind rope and maintain its tension. A Mile Marker winch is a standard one in the game and offers a great amount of work efficiency and productivity. But it might run into trouble sometimes, and that is okay.
To make sure that you never have to slow down in work again, we have prepared a list of Mile Marker winch problems and stepwise tips on how to solve them.
6 Mile Marker Winch Issues and Their Solution
Hopefully, the following list will contain all possible troubles and solutions that a Mile Marker winch might get into:
1. Motor Not Running
A winch is operated by the engine of the vehicle that it is plugged to. We mean, of course, you are not a plant and won’t be producing energy for your hardware.
Any complications regarding the engine of the said vehicle might result in a nonfunctional winch. Here are a few things to check to solve this problem:
Check Valves
Check all the pressure valves and hydraulic valves. You might want to look out for possible leaks, clogs, or any kind of obstruction blocking the valves. Any kind of spill is a good sign to indicate that there is possible leakage. You might have to reboot the machine to solve this problem.
Re-Insert Plug
The winch plugged into the circuit of the vehicle (or any other plug forming the pathway of introducing energy from engine to motor) might be loose or damaged. Take off and re-insert the plugs to make sure it’s not a mechanical error. An old winch might need its plugs to be replaced.
Gearbox
Your gearbox might have dropped dead for some reason or may have some broken parts inside. If so, fix or replace them. If your gearbox is fine, please proceed to the next steps.
Free Spool
You will need to use the free spool feature of your winch before you spend more time fiddling with useless options. Make sure that the rope is not restricted by tie bars. Then have the rope come off the spool manually.
Examine The Circuit
Just like your home, your winch is supervised by a circuit breaker that keeps the fluctuation of electric voltage in check. If there is an electric surge from the main current supply, the circuit breaker will drop. In this case, you just need to put it back up.
Check Relay
This is almost similar to the last step. Even when a power surge isn’t enough to break the circuit, it still can have significant fluctuation that will be kept under check by the relay.
Examine the relay to exclude these causes. Look out for voltage direction and resistance if you have a meter.
Look out for Burnt Motor
This is the most common reason why a motor shuts down and refuses to start back up again. If your winch has been in use for many years, or if you have been using your winch for several hours at a stretch, it might burn down.
A burnt motor doesn’t always give out smoke or smell, so you might need to figure it out on your own and just get a new one.
Also Read: How Do You Test Your Winch Motor?
2. Motor Runs in the Wrong Direction
Your motor starts, but at cost? If you ever had a fan that spun clockwise, you know that it’s no use since it doesn’t give any ventilation. Similarly, if your motor runs in one direction only, or in the wrong direction as opposed to your command, there might be something wrong with the solenoid.
Here’s how to fix it:
Free contact of the solenoid and recharge it. Pick a certain volt and reinforce it into the coil terminal. It should be good to go once recharged.
Make sure that your solenoid is not stuck. Check your battery for clog or grease to exclude electrical causes of solenoid error.
Also Read: How To Test A Winch Solenoid
3. Motor Runs But Shuts Down Frequently
This might be from an overheated battery or a faulty voltage. Your winch will start normally and run for a few minutes before shutting down or slowing down.
Here’s how to fix it:
Give your motor time to cool off. Look at the terminal voltage. If the voltage is less than 10 voltages, you might need to pair it up with a parallel circuit to increase the voltage with an additional circuit.
You can check battery voltage by pressing the IN or OUT button. Arrange a better or more powerful charging system in case your current one isn’t meeting the demand of your winch.
4. Rope Doesn’t Wind
You hear your motor going brrr, but the rope doesn’t wind in either direction. This might be from a drum that doesn’t rotate. This is usually caused by an unengaged clutch. Engage your clutch to have the drum rotating again.
5. Tension Isn’t Maintained
If you have watched the movie Ghost Ship, then you know how important it is to have the correct tension in strings of rope. Spoiler alert: everyone on the ship got split in half because the rope came off the pole while being mounted on with incredible tension.
Lest you should want this happening with your winch, you might want the tension on the rope to be perfect every moment. Moreover, safety is first. All of these are reasons why you should use ropes and not cables.
Dyneema rope is one of the good ones (not sponsored), and using cable might only require them to be replaced more often.
6. You Want More Power
This is not an actual problem, just a personal preference. If you feel unsatisfied with the amount of workload your winch is offering, there are a few small tricks you can apply.
- Make sure that the winch is connected to the correct vehicle. You can’t expect a tiny car to operate a winch as a truck does.
- Get military style. Yes for real — replace your 12V with a 24V as the military does. You can achieve this by getting a conversion kit.
Precautions You Need to Take
A fully running Mile Marker winch is of no use if you are dead. It is highly unlikely to be hurt from trying to repair a winch, but there are precautionary measures that should be followed religiously:
1. Wear Goggles
You don’t want any specks or broken pieces to get into your eyes as you test to operate your winch.
2. Keep Children Out of the Workplace
Faulty winch rarely can end in a haphazard wind-up, but it can happen. Be prepared for that as you repair your winch.
Bottom Line
Even though there is a multitude of reasons why your winch keeps running into problems, you should not have any more trouble fixing them after having read this article.
Just discover what the issue is, and complete the step-by-step tasks introduced in the guide. After this, you should be capable enough to solve your Mile Marker winch problems.