Thread: 12v Electric Recovery Winch - replacing broken terminal stud and reconnecting interna

Many many many years ago I managed to snap one of the electrical terminal studs (brass?) on my Ironman 9,500lb winch. Wasn't too much of an issue at the time as I just took the second nut off (that locks the stud to the body barrel), put the cable terminal straight on and did it up. That's held up and worked for six plus years now until this weekend when I needed to remove the winch. The nut had rusted to the stud so when I tried to undo the nut it instead spun the entire stud (as it didn't have a lock nut on it to assist in keeping it in place due to being removed years ago) and internally broke off the electrical connection to the studs head:








Thankfully it all disassembled relatively easily and neatly. I'm not sure where I would source a replacement brass stud - it needs to be about 10mm or so longer than what can be seen in the pictures in order to fit the locking nut back (otherwise I might just end up repeating this issue again in the future), has a hex and square shank on it (the insulation bushing in the winches body barrel is suitably square).

Then I believe that I need a 'stud welder' to reconnect the electrical wiring to it's head as apparently solder doesn't hold up in the heat when the winch is running in full load.

Anyone done such a repair before and able to advise on any parts?

The alternative is an entire replacement motor (e.g. 12V 6.0hp Winch Motor with Motor Base for Winch 4WD [12MB] - $175.00 : 4x4Point, Australian Online-Shop for Jeep Parts and Accessories ) while they're sold out, but if that price of $175.00 is an indicator I'd probably then be worth getting an entire new winch from 4WDSupaCentre at $300.00ish rather... I would be suprised if the Ironman winch isn't just a rebadged mass made model so might get lucky finding a replacement motor to suit if I keep looking.

Originally Posted by twr7cx

Received the motor back from the shop yesterday. $27.50 in labour from them for the job but $88.00 charged but their supplier to have the new stud machined up. Overall, not too bad. Has repaired both a snapped stud and broken electrical connection on the winch for me.

Although with the new winches being so cheap these days it is difficult to justify the expenses of repairing old one when new ones include the new rope and warranty etc.

Over all that worked out great.
The machining price is very reasonable considering most shops charge more than that just for setup of material in the lathe.
I can see the long term value of winches that have quality spare parts support.
I'm going to be running an old Thomas electric in the front and generic cheap winch on the rear.
At least I can still get parts for the Thomas.