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This is a summary of my installation of a Mile Marker H9000 hydraulically actuated winch on a 2006 CRD. The summary is not detailed enough to provide technical details, rather it's intended to help you make a go/nogo decision for hydraulic vs. electric installation. It is a tale of woe, frustration, questionable common sense and ultimately success. If after reading the summary, if someone is still serious about following the same path; I'll be glad to provide technical details of lessons learned during the long, expensive and frustrating experience.
After installing an ARB front bumper in fall of 2007 I felt the need to fill the cavity with a winch. Being an eccentric and stubborn engineer I was sure a hydraulic winch would be superior to an electric one and ordered the MileMarker H9000 as an X-Mas present to myself in December of 2007, also ordered was the KJ hydraulic adapter kit.
The winch and fairlead bolt up cleanly to the ARB with the exception of the area around the solenoid valve. The top surface of the bumper must be trimmed (about 3 square inches removed) to provide access to connect the hoses. I found the solenoid valve needed to be rotated putting the hydraulic ports facing up, with clever hydraulic elbows and preplanning you may get it to work with the ports facing rearward and thereby avoid trimming the bumper (but I couldn't get it to work).
Access to the manual gear change on the opposite end of the winch is not good as it's tight and you can't see what you are doing, but it is reasonably workable and I won't be changing it.
The electrical control wire loom can be concealed within the volume of the ARB so as to be protected. I mounted the pendant pedestal adjacent to the winch under the protection of the brush bar, I'm sure there are other good locations as well.
The delays started when I got into the hydraulics. The power steering hose on the CRD is intimidating, it has several canisters, both the pressure and return hose are integrated into a single tangled assembly and the reservoir is seperate from the pump on the CRD. I have not inspected a gas Liberty in the area of the power steering system, but I can say with considerable confidence that the routing of this hose on the CRD leaves the hose so buried that it's difficult to comprehend what-is-what when you look at it in the assembed vehicle. Because of the intimidation, I sought the help of the chief engineer at MileMarker. His assistance was limited and slow coming, but it was correct and mostly suggested I take things cautiously and methodically as they did not have experience with the application.
The suggestion was to buy a new OEM power steering hose assembly, have it modified then swap it. If their were problems, I could go back to the original. I ordered the hose in Sept of '08, at that time there were (25) of them backorded in the country. Received it from Chrysler (after calling a parts availablity complaint line) in spring of '09, 6 months later. Cost was about $270. Milemarker had suggested (correctly) where in the pressure line between the canisters to cut it and swage in new hydraulic fittings. However at this point I learned that no hydraulic shop in the country will work on an existing hose. Having been turned away from shop after shop, I pulled in a favor from my employer and strong armed a supplier after signing a waiver. That took 5 months to chase down. I configured the added fittings so that I could conect them to effectively recreate the OEM hose, or, splice in the pressure and return hoses of the Milemarker to run the winch. This was a good decision as after removing the original power steering hose and installing the modifed hose, the (14) hour day that gave me bloody skinless knuckles from doing the swap left me without desire to debug the rest of the system. It ran with the modified hose but without the winch plumbed into the circuit for a few months.
Note that when I pulled the MileMarker pendant from the box, it did not work. By this time I was way out of warranty and Milemarker gave me a terse, compassionless response to my request for replacement of the never used item. Rather than buying a Milemarker part, I purchased a sturdier industrial control pendant from McMasterCarr and rewired the system for that unit, however I did use their connection pedestal with their electrical socket.
Bleeding the power steering system everytime you crack a fitting loose has become routine, however many oil puddles later I must admit there are lots of ways to do that wrong. I never could find the designation for the power steering fluid and have used generic (clear) power steering fluid (not ATF!!) although the original fluid in the system was red (maybe they don't know not to use ATF either?).
After a brief foray caused by the stupidy hooking the return line to the 'P' port on the winch and not having much power steering volume, the system is finally working (August of '10)along with the power steering.
Haven't used the unit for recovery and truth be told, never needed to get pulled off/out of anything in the intervening 2-1/2 years despite lots of offroad miles, but it will be nice to know it's there in case.
As I mentioned, if you want to do this, I'll tell you what I learned. Considering the vehicle has had many other projects done on it in the interim, this was absolutely the least rewarding when measuring the ratio of accomplishment out to effort put in.
Thanks
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'06 Dark Khaki CRD Limited, JBA Adjust-A-Struts w/4"Lift, Cut C/V's, 31.0x10.5x15 KL71 Kuhmos on Cragars, Skids, Rock Rails, ARB Bumper, Rock Lizard Rear Bumper, Milemarker Hyd Winch, Suncoast T/C, TransGo
Other: '07 Touareg V10 TDI, Rechipped, dyno test 565 ft-lb at wheels
Last edited by DieselButt on Fri Aug 06, 2010 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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