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Article by
Paul "PF" Dadarria
- Photos
by Rick Thorpe
Well,
Chicago Electric has been offering their 8000 LB. winch at
great prices for some time now. It has been applauded
and has seen it's critics. It might not be the fastest
winch out there, but it does what it is suppose to do and
can last a long time when properly taken care of and not
abused.
Specs:
- Power in, power out
- Remote hand control switch with 12 ft. cord
- Fairlead: 11-3/4''L x 3-5/16''W x 1'' deep
- Line speed (in feet per minute): 13 (no load), 11
(2000 lbs.), 6 (6000 lbs.), 4.5 (8000 lbs.)
12 volts, 1.8 HP, 37.5 amp
draw; Drum diameter: 2.5''; Gear ratio: 210:1; Cable: 5/16’’
x 95 ft.; Overall dimensions: 20-11/16''L x 3-1/8''W x
6-15/16''H; Bolt pattern: 10’’ x 4.5’’; Weight: 60 lbs.
It doesn’t matter if you’re
into mud, trails, or rocks, one day you will need a winch.
My local Harbor Freight ran a sale on they’re Chicago
Electric 8k winch for 289.00. I great price, but recently
it was down close to 230. I know you’re thinking that “you
get what you pay for”, well, it’s my understanding that it’s
the same winch is the Ramsey 8k, and we’ll be putting to the
test against one real soon. ;)
This is what you’ll have when
you start. I didn’t care for the “universal mounting
plate”. It requires some drilling and I really wanted a
clean look that mounted in the factory bumper mount
location. Unfortunately I made that decision a week after
purchasing the winch, so I had to wait another 2 weeks for
the “Mounting plate for Jeep vehicles” to arrive at the
front door. First thing you’ll want to do is take inventory
of all the parts. Make sure that you have everything that
you’re going to need. A socket set, an allen wrench set,
open end wrenches and t55 torx socket to remove the stock
bumper bolts.
The first step is to mount the
fairlead to the mounting plate. Once the winch is on the
plate, it will be impossible or near impossible to get this
on.
Next you’ll flip your winch on
its top and attach the mounting plate. This is where it
gets a little tricky. On the feet of the winch, there are
slots for you to slide the nut and a washer into. Slide
these in and line them up with the hole above. You can use
a pencil to line up the nut and washer with the hole. After
putting all 4 in the legs, gently lay the mounting plate
upside-down on the winch. You don’t want to knock the nuts
around you just carefully set in the holes. Gently start
all 4 of the bolts then tighten accordingly.
Attach the solenoid to the
small mounting plate supplied. You’ll need to remove the
nuts on the left support brackets of the winch using a
socket and the allen wrench. The solenoid mounting plate
will slide on to the allen bolts and is secured with the
nuts you just removed. I opted to wait until the winch was
mounted to the Jeep to do this step which makes it a little
more difficult. If you’re using the universal mounting
channel, you can also mount the solenoid next to the winch
for a lower profile look.
Next you’ll remove the plastic
Jeep sway bar cover and unbolt the front two bolts that
secure the sway bar. Replacements for these were supplied,
but didn’t seem to grab, so I reused the stock ones until I
can get longer replacements.
When laying the winch and
mount on the bumper, there is a gap between it and the sway
bar retainer. The mounting plate came with some large
washers, I used 3 of them on each side to level it with the
bumper. Bolt down the mount using the bolts provided and
torque to 35ftlbs. At this point you are secured! Pull the
loop of the cable through the fairlead and attach the hook
to the cable.
Give yourself a pat on the back
and grab a (insert beverage of choice)!
Attach the black cables coming
out of the solenoid to the winch. They simply bolt to the
terminals using the washers and nuts supplied.
Take the red and black leads
from the solenoid and run them through the grill and neatly
along the fender to the battery. DO NOT PULL TIGHT. You
want to leave slack in the leads ‘just in case’. (I’m a
believer that if you pull wire tight, It will break sooner
or later.)
Attach the red lead (+) to the
positive (+) battery terminal and the black lead (-) to the
negative (-) terminal. And you’re finished. Start up the
jeep, pull out some slack and reel it back in. Before you
get out on the trails and use the winch, you'll need to
stretch the cable. Go to the grocery store and drag
yourself up to one of the yellow poles or find a tree.
Do this 2 or 3 times and this will help keep our cable from
wanting to unspool or "birdnest". Plus it will allow you to
get comfortable with your winch before you’re out on the
trail, in the rain, in the mud, looking up a 45 degree
incline that you have to get up. Another thing I’ve read
was not to connect your winch power leads to the side
terminals on you battery. (If you have them) Optima, for
one will not cover warranty if you have a set up like this.
You can change your starter and electronics cables to mount
to the side terminals, but the winch needs to be mounted on
the top.
Replacing the stock sway bar
cover can be done with some trimming, I used some scissors,
and a dremel. Mark where the feet of the winch line up with
the anti-sway bar cover and then trim accordingly. You’ll
need to put it back into position several times to trim
additionally until you get a good fit. The back of the
mounting plate interferes with the cover a little bit but as
you can see from the pictures, I made it work.
Now you’re done. If you have
any questions during your install, please let us know. If
you’ve experienced trouble or think we should include
additional information, we’d like to know about it.
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PRODUCT INFORMATION
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Chicago Electric®
Products can be purchased at
Harbor Freight Stores. |
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