Thread: Winch with or without engine running?

I would have said with the engine running, but based on your experience and your auto electricians comments I am now having second thoughts....

Motor running, I can see the battery going long before the alternator would if you didn't, I did a winch self recovery in Jenolan SF, 1 and 1/2 hours up a clay muddy sticky hill, somehow I can't see a battery lasting 90 minutes without the motor running.

Baz.

Hi pawl, time to find a new auto electrician.

As above, you are far better off running your motor while winching and you won’t “burn out“ an alternator by placing high current loads on it. An alternator will automatically adjust it’s output voltage to compensate for high current draws.

Best practice for winching is for you to winch for 60 seconds and rest for 90 with the motor at a fast idle at all time.

While actually winching, the winch is powered by a combination of the alternators maximum current output and the remainder coming from your battery.

The rest period allows everything to cool down and the alternator to put back some bulk into the battery, readying it for the next winch run.

Now to your auto elecs comment. Most people living in one of our well planned cities would have driven in slow moving bumper to bumper traffic at some time, if not on a regular basis.

During this sort of driving, particularly in winter, at night, and you are likely to be trying to pull far more current than your alternator can produce at low revs, and while not quite the same, the actions are similar, so why haven’t all these alternators “burnt out”?

There has to be something else wrong before high current usage damages an alternator.

Thanks Drivesafe, that is reassuring. I'll can keep the motor running then.
But I'm at a loss to work out why the alternator stopped working. Could it be when I stepped out of the vehicle to check something and finished winching the stricken patrol while the engine was left at idle? Can you do damage if left at idle? When I got back in the vehicle after winching the tacho was at zero and there was no charge light, and the battery volts steadily decreased on the drive home.

i have a real big battery and i can take a guess that it would llast about 2 maby 3 car lengths of hard winching and come to a stop,, so id never run with out the engine on, and i bring the revs right up when winching and well after,

or just use a block and it will take less amps to pull as well, go slower but i guess easyer on your batt and ault,

Hi again pawl, alternators are not based on new technologies and are both very stable as far as reliability goes and are extremely robust and as I posted earlier, it usually takes something else to cause a failure.

You may have just been unlucky and got an alternator with a faulty part or you may have washed you engine bay at some time, with a chemical that was not real good for the alternator’s windings, could be any number of reason behind your failure.

Have you had the alternator checked or did you just do a swap?

Pawl, have you checked the 100A maxi fuse isn't blown???It is near the expansion tank in the small fuse box. This will cause these symptoms.

Sounds like the alternator isn't being excited, so check the fuses first.

Also, check the alternator output by jumping the 2 wires on the back of the alt (NOT the 'W' one though) together while engine is running and you should get at least 14 to 15 V output. Do it briefly only. This bypasses the ignition feed to the exciter circuit to check the alternator itself. If OK, then definately a fuse or ignition supply is at fault.

JC

If it is the alternator fit a transit model,$295. Pat