this may be a dumb question but when i was wiring my winch today i grounded out the winch on a bolt on the frame where some lights are grounded and the winch wouldn't work so i moved the wire to the battery ground and worked is this how its supposed to wired or was i just not getting a good ground where it was?

 

Always ground the negative cable to the Negative post. It's too much current to be grounding to the frame or bumper. You can actually cause a fire if you ground the negative cable to the frame of your jeep. See the thread below.

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/show...ted-brake-line

 

thanks guys thats how i left it ...just making sure

 

Not trying to make up an argument, but I have my winch grounded to the cross member that is in front of the auto sway disconnect. It works great. A ground is a ground. Doesn't matter where it is.

 

That is not necessarily true. Current coming from your battery is going to take the path of least resistance every time. That doesn’t mean that it is going to flow through the same path to complete the circuit every time you use your winch if you have it grounded somewhere on your frame, bumper or cross member. The guy that posted the tread I copied on my previous post grounded his winch similar to you. It worked fine for him for a while. When he put on the new bumper he grounded it the same way again. That time the current flowed through his break lines. It only takes one instance for all that current to flow through something it shouldn’t be to cause you serious damage. The only way to be sure that you will not have that problem is to run both the positive and negative cables directly to your battery. That way the current only has one path to flow through. It has no other choice because you have pretty much isolated the rest of the jeep from that circuit. When you are dealing with something that is only pulling an amp or so it’s not a big deal grounding to the frame but when you are dealing with 300 – 450 AMPS that’s a whole other story. Remember that winch manufacturers always recommend running both cables directly to your battery. If grounding to the frame wasn’t an issue then they would ground the motor out directly to the winch case and you would have a ground connection through your winch plate. You would only have a positive cable coming from the winch. The reason they don’t do that is because of the risks involved when dealing with that much current.

It’s your choice if you want to ground to the frame but just remember the risk you may be taking.

 

This shouldn't even be a discussion.

Do what the directions say. If they say ground to the battery, then SU and JUST DO IT!!

 

I agree

 

You can't always depend on the factorys broad directions. It'd be dumb not to try to apply common sense and follow it blindly

 

JK44M is right, current is always going to follow the path of least resistance. I'm curious, did your winch come with a short ground cable? Mine is grounded to my battery and performs flawlessly.