Wear leather gloves to respool winch cable.
Letting your winch cable spool up like a bird’s nest is a sure way to damage your winch or cable. Follow these tips to respool your cable in neat, orderly rows.
Respooling Cable After a Pull
Safety first: Always wear leather gloves for respooling winch cable. They protect your hands from burrs, wire splinters, and extreme temperatures.
To respool correctly, you need to keep a slight load on the cable. Hold the cable with one hand and the remote control switch with the other. Start as far back and in the center as you can. Then walk towards the winch as you power in the cable, keeping a load on the cable as you move forward.
Do not allow the cable to slide through your hand. Be careful not to approach the winch too closely. Getting your hand or glove caught in the winch is extremely dangerous.
Turn off the winch and repeat the procedure until all the cable except 3 feet is spooled onto the drum.
Disconnect the remote control switch and finish spooling in the winch cable by rotating the drum by hand with the clutch disengaged.
On hidden winches, spool in the cable under power, but keep your hands clear of the opening.
Uneven Spooling
Winch cable that spools unevenly while you are pulling a load is not a problem unless the cable is piling up on one end of the drum. If this happens, reverse the winch to relieve the load; then move your anchor point further to the center of the vehicle.
After you’re done winching, you can unspool and re-wind for a neat lay of the cable. Neat, tight spooling avoids cable binding, which is caused when a load is applied and the cable is pinched between the other wraps.