etrailer ATV Winch - Synthetic Rope - Hawse Fairlead - 2,500 lbs

Video Transcript for etrailer Hawse Fairlead ATV Winch Installation - 2004 Polaris Ranger

Hey everyone, Chain here with etrailer.com. Today I have a 2004 Polaris sportsman ATV. I wanna walk you how to install the etrailer.com, 2,500 pound winch. Now if you've had an ATV before, without a new inch, or ATV is something new to you, adding a winch on, is gonna save you a lot of trouble, when trying to do a lot of different things. For instance, if you're a hunter. I've had situations where I've been out hunting on my in-law's property, they don't have a winch.

Trails only go so far. What if the deer falls, down in the woods now you have to get three or four people to drag the deer up. So where you are, if you had a winch, you could stretch it out and you don't have to use all that muscle and energy trying to get that deer out of the woods. Maybe you like to go four-wheeling, go out riding with a bunch of friends. Maybe you get stuck in the mud somewhere, pull this out wrap it around a tree and you can pull yourself out of the mud without having to rely on somebody else to pull you out.

Maybe you pull a friend out, this is a way to not pull yourself but help your friend pulled their selves out. This is what a winch looks like when it's installed. It's gonna fit right in this area on your ATV. It's gonna come with a bracket to mount the winch to the plate and then matching fairly to the plate. Alright depending of how your bike is set up, it may require an additional bracket.

You can find those here at etrailer. It's gonna with a polish aluminum fairly because it is a synthetic rope. It's gonna have rolled edges or smooth edges so that it doesn't snag the rope itself. The casing for the motor, is gonna be a very durable casing. It's gonna keep dust, dirt debris and some strong water spray from getting into the motor and causing any damage.

This is a free spool design, right over here on this side there's a little lever and it allows you, to pull your robot by hand. So let's say our bike breaks down but we still have battery power or we can't use our winch. You pulled that lever and it allows you to pull this rope out, wrap it around whatever you need to wrap around to get yourself out of the hole. The other nice thing about it is it has a brake in it. So what that means is, again let's say we've broke down but we still have battery power. We got to wrap it around a tree and we release the brake on the bike itself. The winch has a break in it so it won't allow the bike or the spool to release or to allow the bike to roll down a hill. It'll hold it in place. Keep in mind, if you want it to lock you have to make sure if you have it on free spool you lock the free spool back into place. To release a free spool, you simply pull out and twist. A rope is gonna have a nice cover on it so when we go to wrap it around a tree or something like that we don't have to worry about the road getting damaged. As I mentioned, it's as 50 foot long so we have plenty of rope to reach or we need to go. One thing to keep in mind, when you unroll it if you're rolling out of the way make sure it has one or two turns, around the wheel so it has a good height tight hold. When you have your line rope tight, it's a good idea, to add on a line break. And this is with any winch or any rope that, whether it's wire rope, so that, if you're on the bike and you're pulling yourself up, if that line breaks for any reason, it doesn't come back and hit you. This is also gonna come with a switch. It's gonna have a durable plastic housing. We're not going to worry about water or anything getting in there, damaging the electrical components. The switch itself is gonna have a nice rubber coating on it, so again, we don't have to worry about water or anything if our hands are wet pushing the button we don't have to worry about water getting in there. It's also gonna come with a bracket, so we pretty much universal, we get mounted anywhere on our handlebars. Now that's a good idea when you're rolling it back in, keep the line tight, have a pair of gloves on so you can hold onto the rope doesn't tear up your hands. It's gonna be a one horse powered motor. It's gonna work with 12 volt DC batteries. It's gonna have 135 amps of draw at 2,500 pounds of line pool. It's gonna be a planetary design and single-stage planetary, which is different than your wormhole or your typical wormhole. Wormhole is basically, a bolt that goes through it's got a crank on it and when your motor kicks in that crank grabs on and it allows you to pull, use the winch. Being a single stage planetary, it's gonna have a crank but it's gonna have several little ones inside, so that when that motor kicks in at acts as a train and then allows that, motor to work that line much faster than a single wormhole. Now that we've gone over some of the features let's walk you through how to get it installed. Before we get into the installation, I'm actually gonna be removing an older winch. But what I show you is, if you're just now putting a winch on, you haven't ever put one on and you're not replacing one. If you're trying to decide between a wired one and a synthetic one, this is what the wired ones do, after a very short period of time. They start rusting like this. They start fraying. You can see a spot here where it's pinched and that creates a weak spot in, the cable. You can also see as this cable rugs on this fairlead, what it does. This one, barely spins anymore. So my opinion, I would go with a synthetic rope over the wired ones. Other than that, it fell along after I get this one taken off we'll walk you through how to install the other one. We're gonna start by taking, this panel off. We're gonna take a T27 torx bit. Here's maybe set up a little bit different but, we need to get access to the inside of this as much as possible so, if yours like this, you're gonna have two here, you're gonna have to down here in the corners. We'll just slide this panel off. Be careful if you're messing with the wire cable, you don't stick your fingers, wear gloves. Now we've gotten to the point where we've disconnected the old winch from the battery. They've taken off the backs and we have access to the battery. It's just a matter of figuring out which bolts are holding your panels down. This panel here, mounted right here on the driver's side or on the left side of the bike, towards the front and the heather old box, mounted right here, you can see it that's what these two screws are for. The difference is, the old one doesn't have this. So what I'm gonna do is, take these screws out. I'm gonna mount this in there to see if it makes contact with anything. This is for the switch that mounts on the handlebars. This box has to be mounted close enough to the winch that these two leads will reach. So all I'm gonna do is where the existing holes are, I'm gonna go up just a little and a little bit towards this back edge, and that should get that to where it runs right through the center of that bracket. And I've got my old winch out of the bracket I'm just gonna use this bracket again. It is going to come with a new plate. However, the bracket that we have it's not gonna work together. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna clean this up. I'll put a fresh coat of paint on it. Kind of help reduce any more rusting, as much as possible and then we'll get our new winch put in place. Next since we're using the old bracket, this is a new fairlead for, the holster lead for your synthetic rope. If you look the holes don't line up. So we're gonna do, we're gonna get it as even as possible and we're gonna make new holes for any hardware. It's gonna come with new hardware. You had an Allen head bolt flat washer, lock washer and nut. Once you get a bolt on each side, we're gonna install a winch. We're gonna take her in passing through our fairlead. We're gonna line up these two holes, on the bottom of our winch with the two holes in the bracket, it's gonna come with new hardware in the longer bolt, fit in one and then we'll follow it up with a flat washer, lock washer and a nut. Again pass that through the winch and both brackets if you're using an existing one. Flat washer, lock washer, nut. And then we'll, re-install our winch and our bracket back onto our bike. Again, we got two here and two on the other side. Now we're gonna get our switch mounted. It's gonna come with a handle bar bracket, and I think I'm gonna mount it right here. There's a little plate that comes with it. This allows you to angle, the switch the way you want Nicely sit, pretty much however you want, on your handlebars. You wanna make sure when you put the clamp on, you're not going around any wires or anything like that. Come back with that tightened, adjust this up here however we want. So for my cable, what I'm gonna do, is took off a couple of screws and took this cap off. I'm gonna pass this wire, right down through here and then I'm gonna work it. There's some factory wiring that runs right down the center right though here. I'm gonna get it to fit down through there. Zip tie on it. All I did was, ran my wire straight over here, bundled up, zip tied it to my factory wiring here. And to make sure when you're coming down, stay away from the steering arm that goes up to the handlebars because it's gonna turn, right there. Gonna make sure it's not gonna get caught on anything between here and there. So what I did is I just found some factory to being anything like that up there and ran it right along that. And this is where my box is gonna be connected. We'll be able to plug that right in, and then power our ground, it needs to go back towards the battery. Our panel and then our two short ones, are gonna hook up to our winch. You can set in place, see if we can get the, cable connected under the box. So my power and ground coming from my unit, that has to go back to my battery. What I did is when I pulled out the old one, I just followed it. There's a factory wiring that runs, you can see right here. And it's running from where the units mounted, and it's followed it right along, the same way when I pulled out the other one. You just make sure if you're not taking an old one out, you just run it. I like to try to find factory wiring, try to right where you're understand if anything, how to move it. Our ground is actually gonna connect right here, which is right there. And then our power, has to go to the braker, and it connect like this. And this is gonna connect to the positive side of the battery. There's no way to mount this. So what we're gonna do, is I'm gonna put it on here. I'm gonna tape up this whole end, and then we'll kind of you make sure no metal is gonna touch the two prongs together. And then we'll just kind of get it to fit in, so where we can get this mounted onto the positive side of the battery there. I'm gonna go ahead to get our cable hooked up to our winch before we hook up to our battery. It really doesn't matter how you do it but, rather than hooking up to the battery and potentially having these spark on something, we'll hook up to this one first. It's gonna come with a little rubber boot, looks like that it's gonna help protect your hands here. Take off the nut, and then it's gonna have two warships on it. We'll put one washer down, put a ring terminal on the other washer on top. We'll take our 10 millimeter wrench or socket and then tighten up. You wanna make sure you don't over tight them. Push your boot over the top like that, and we'll do the same thing with the power cable. Now we can now go ahead and hook up our power and ground. I actually, covered the wire coming from my braker, with some wiring as well. It's really up to you, trying to protect it as much as possible. Once we get that on, we go ahead and test it up, to make sure it's working correctly. Now we know it's working. We can go ahead and reinstall our panels. Once you have all your panels put back in place, we can install the hook, you're gonna pull the pin out. Slide the pin through the ring and then put your cotter pin back in place. It's gonna come with a strap like this for your hook. You're gonna like that. Once you get your strap and your hook put on, you're ready to go. It's gonna do it for look and installation on the etrailer.com, 2,500 pound winch on the 2004 Polaris sportsman ATV..