Some of the Warn winches like
the 9.5ti and XD9000i have solenoids that are sealed in the casing
of the winch. Thats great because it keeps the solenoids protected
from the elements. Other winches have a separate solenoid pack that
is usually mounted on top of the winch but doesn't have to be. It
could be mounted to the grill, to your bumper, or anywhere you like.
This gives you more options on where to mount your winch especially
if space is limited. The disadvantage to the separate solenoid pack
is that it is not sealed from the elements. I decided to relocate
mine to under the hood. This not only will give me a cleaner install
for the winch, but will also help keep the solenoids clean and dry.
The challenge is where under the hood can it be mounted?
The solenoid box is roughly 7.5" x 6.0" x 3.5".
I've seen some guys mount it on the driver side of the engine
compartment behind the stock airbox on the fender, or anywhere
around there if they have a cone filter. But since I am using the
stock airbox for my snorkel, I was having trouble finding a place to
mount it. I came up with an idea that seemed difficult at first, but
in the end was very easy and turned out to be a great spot for the
box. My idea was to move the PDC (Power Distribution Center) closer
to the passenger side fender, move the coolant overflow bottle
toward the center of the engine compartment, and sandwich the
solenoid box between the two. It worked out kind of like that...
This photo shows the stock location of the PDC and coolant
bottle. My white line shows about where the solenoid box will be.
The red line is an outline of the bracket that holds one side of the
coolant bottle. That bracket will support the solenoid box.
The PDC can be unclipped from its bracket and moved out of the
way without disconnecting any wires. Once it is moved, you can see
the PDC bracket is pop rivetted to another bracket that is bolted to
the inner fender.
Here is a view of the bracket from the front of the engine
compartment.
I drilled out the rivets and moved the bracket over about 3/4".
I secured it with rivets but not all existing holes would work so I
drilled a couple new holes.
The PDC was hooked onto its bracket and the solenoid box was
installed. I couldn't just move the coolant bottle over as I
originally thought, but I found that it could be rotated 90 degrees
from its stock position which would provide enough room for the
solenoid box. I had to fabricate a simple bracket to secure the
bottle in this new position.
Mounting the solenoid box this far away from the winch requires
longer winch cables. The winch cables are 2AWG and I needed 6'
cables. The power and ground leads supplied with the winch happen to
be 6' in length so I figured a heavier gauge cable wasn't needed. I
used the power lead as one of the solenoid cables, and had two new
cables made at a local AC Delco store. Since the solenoid box is now
very close to the battery, this is good because I can use one of the
short solenoid cables as the power lead.
Here is a view of the solenoid box from the driver side. One
thing I should also note is mounting it here still gives me room to
reach in and change the oil filter, and as you can see I can still
access the shock mount. But if the box is ever in the way, it can
also be moved from that spot easily.
I thought I would also have enough room to hook up my winch
controller, but I ran into a little snag here. One of the AC lines
was just in the way to prevent me from hooking up the controller.
I trimmed a little bit of the controller with a utility knife.
And that gave me just enough room to attach the controller.
Continue on to In-Cab Winch
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