Batteries, Charging, and using a Winch question.

This past weekend I hooked up a 12V winch to just the front battery. I left the truck running and after pulling one small shrub out of the ground, the winch stopped winding. I turn the truck off and unplugged the winch wondering if something had gone wrong with it. Then I went to restart the truck and it wouldn't crank. I checked the batteries and the front battery was down to about 9 volts, while the rear was still at 12.8.

My questions are, should the truck have revved up when the battery was drawing so low? And the way the 24V system is set, shouldn't the batteries have equaled out? Or at idle speed, does it just not charge fast enough to keep up with a winch?

CivilEGR said:

This past weekend I hooked up a 12V winch to just the front battery. I left the truck running and after pulling one small shrub out of the ground, the winch stopped winding. I turn the truck off and unplugged the winch wondering if something had gone wrong with it. Then I went to restart the truck and it wouldn't crank. I checked the batteries and the front battery was down to about 9 volts, while the rear was still at 12.8.

My questions are, should the truck have revved up when the battery was drawing so low? And the way the 24V system is set, shouldn't the batteries have equaled out? Or at idle speed, does it just not charge fast enough to keep up with a winch?

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Sounds like you have a bad battery, alternator or both. Why not get a 24 volt winch? You gotta remember that the alternator max output is only 100 amps not at idle with 12 volts. Not much.

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The truck has no clue what the voltage draw is. There is also no mechanism to increase voltage besides your right foot And the cold fast idle solenoid.

The truck has 2 separate 12 volt systems. They join for starting, military radios, slave starting and the stock glow plug system. Otherwise, just the front battery and the drivers side alternator run the electrical system.

I'm thinking you just depleted the battery.

Charge it and load test it.

After finding and fixing the issue, in the future if you need to do and extended winching (or jump starting) I've found that moving the throttle open by hand and placing a nickel in between the throttle and the stop provides a nice high idle. Just remember to remove it before stepping on the 'gas' pedal, I had a truck that had 5 or 6 nickels laying under the IP.