Help! Winch motor doesn't spin. (1 Viewer)

[Gubbtratt1]

I've got an old chinesium winch that used to work fine when it was on my dad's Range Rover 10 years ago, but after I replaced the brushes a while ago it doesn't work. Solenoids works as they should.

There's between 2.4 and 33 ohms resistance between the black and yellow terminal, the multimeter didn't want to settle. About 10 ohms between red terminal and ground. No continuity between red/ground and black/yellow.

I don't know much about how an electric motor works, so I don't know how to troubleshoot from here. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[gnob]

motor needs to be grounded, for one.
make sure none of the terminals have continuity to the case. the terminal insulators have a tendency to fail.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

motor needs to be grounded, for one.
make sure none of the terminals have continuity to the case. the terminal insulators have a tendency to fail.

The motor is grounded, the ground terminal is on the backside. There's no continuity between the yellow or black terminal and the case, and about 10 ohms between the red terminal and the case (ground). All continuity is measured with the motor disconnected from everything.

 

[gnob]

ok.
two of the brushes should show continuity to the ground and the other two to the red.

 

[pb4ugo]

You just need a battery and jumper cables.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

You just need a battery and jumper cables.

I did that at first, but I didn't like the amount of sparks it generated so I measured the solenoids to make sure they still work fine and wired it up properly.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

The winch is fixed! Apparently the new brushes I got were much wider than the old ones, touching four contacts instead of three.

This was easily fixed by filing down the new brushes to the correct width and mounting them in the old brush holder.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

...and once I have it all assembled it of course doesn't work. More troubleshooting... Hopefully I don't have to open the motor again.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

The motor shaft didn't spin as easily as it used to, so I figured it wasn't in the correct position and whacked it with a sledgehammer a few times. That somehow fixed it, it now works perfectly.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

It seems like it wasn't the repositioning of the shaft that fixed it, but rather the hammer strike. It now again didn't work after just a couple minutes of laying on the workbench, but hitting it with the sledgehammer fixed it. Hopefully it's just the brushes that doesn't have good contact yet.

 

[1911]

It seems like it wasn't the repositioning of the shaft that fixed it, but rather the hammer strike. It now again didn't work after just a couple minutes of laying on the workbench, but hitting it with the sledgehammer fixed it. Hopefully it's just the brushes that doesn't have good contact yet.

Just take a 2 lb. jeep wrench (sledgehammer) with you on the trail.

I once owned a car like that - a British car with Lucas electrics. I would have to bang the starter motor with a hammer to get it to work once or twice a week. Just carried a hammer in the car after while.