I had installed a winch on my DII a while back and although I carefully routed the cables and covered them in sections of heater hose for extra protection against chafing, I was never too comfortable with having that length of energized cable running through the front of the truck without any type of protection. Plus, after seeing a few posts about burned up trucks that had winches on them I can't help but wonder if a short may have played a role. One thing for certain is that my insurance company would probably use that as an excuse to refuse to pay for a loss by fire.

I looked into a high current fuse, but that seemed rather clunky and a 500 amp fuse would still allow for quite the spark show before it blew. I considered a solenoid inserted right next to the battery, but there didn't appear to be any good place to put it without rearranging things.

Then the simplest approach came to me. A quick disconnect. I had attached the positive lead to the factory terminal by threading a stud into the tapped hole and then secured the cable with a washer and nut. I swapped out the nut for a wingnut and just leave the cable off until I need or am about to be in a situation where I may need it. Total cost was $1.85 (seemed a little steep for a wingnut, but whatever!)

 

I wouldn't worry about it, what brand winch doe you have?
I have seen any verified thread where they winch cable caused a fire.

 

It's just a Smittybilt XRC8. I just don't like the idea of 5+ ft. of heavy gauge, unprotected wire running from the battery to the front bumper around all of those nice steel corners. Probably just being paranoid but I've seen shorted cables off the battery do some major damage to construction equipment.

 

What do you mean "unprotected". Certainly its not bare, right. There is no problem with running the wiring in/around the frame/engine bay. Ever seen the cables going to your starter?
The problem is that the supplied cables with your winch are right on the verge of being inadequate. Upgrade your cables to some HD welding cable.

 

By unprotected I mean no overcurrent protection. Of course it's insulated. The starter cable and line to the alternator are also unprotected, but everything else has a fusible link or fuse on it. People are welcome to wire up their rigs anyway that they want to, but I feel more comfortable having a fuse on anything that I can and having a way to disconnect anything else when not in use. A solenoid at the battery would be less ghetto, but I'm feeling too cheap right now to install one.