How Do I Shorten or Extend the Length of My DC Electric Winch Wiring Harness? - FAQs

When installing a StrongArm® electric winch on your trailer, the wiring harness may be too short to reach your vehicle’s battery, or you may have a lot of extra wire. Watch this video for solutions to both problems.

0:00 Intro
0:31 Shortening the length of the wiring harness
2:03 Extending the length of the wiring harness
2:30 Outro

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*Music- "The Creek" by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena


Here is the transcript of this video:

"After you have installed a Dutton-Lainson DC electric winch and its 25 ft wiring harness on your trailer and vehicle, you may have some excess wire that you don't know what to do with. The easiest solution is to simply store the extra wire in the back of your towing vehicle, but many people prefer another, cleaner solution- modifying the wiring harness.

To do this, start by cutting both wires of the wiring harness at your desired spot on your vehicle bumper. Splice onto both of these wires a red connector from the 6385 Quick Connect kit if you have a StrongArm model or a TW9000 or the red connector from the 6288 Quick Connect kit if you have a TW4000. Make sure that you insert the positive wire into the positive terminal of the connector, and the negative wire into the negative terminal of the connector then securely fasten it to your bumper.

Next, plug the switch into the side of your winch if you have a SA model without a remote or the power connector into the back of a TW winch or a SA with a remote. Run this end of the wire down to your newly spliced and installed connector, being sure to leave some slack for when you're driving your vehicle and trailer down the road, and cut it at your desired length. Splice the other connector from the Quick Connect kit to this end of the wire, then plug the connectors into each other.

This allows you to disconnect and store this shorter section of wire when your trailer is not in use and easily reconnect it as needed. We do recommend that you use some zip ties or a sheath on this short section of wire, just so it doesn't get tangled up on anything or tripped on.

Conversely, if you have an especially long vehicle or trailer tongue, you may find that the wiring harness actually isn't long enough to reach your winch, so you need to extend the length of it. If that's the case, you can simply perform the same connector splice process, again ensuring you put the correct wire in the correct connector terminal but just add on additional length from a second wiring harness instead of removing some from your original one.

Thanks for watching!

Be sure to click the top-right thumbnail for full instructions on installing a DC electric winch to a trailer, then let us know what questions you want us to answer in a future video!"