Review of Pro 3000lb ATV Winch

Product Reviewed: Gorilla [now ProMark Offroad] 3000lb Pro-Series Winch (Installed on a Polaris Sportsman 500)

By : Lewis Roberts (Lewy of atvfrontier.com)

It has taken a few years of riding in the mountains of Colorado to finally convince me that having a winch on at least one of our ATV’s while off-roading the back country of the Rocky Mountains could prove to be a great benefit. While it is obvious that if you’re going too purposely ride through the worst mud holes or water areas sooner or later you’re going to get stuck and perhaps in such a way that being pulled out by another ATV is not an option. Personally I avoided these situations and so did most of the folks I ride with.

Three years ago while riding the “Timberline Trail” in Taylor Park Colorado with my wife and son I finally realized that for the well being of all of us I should get a winch. The Timberline Trail is a notoriously narrow high mountain, rough, narrow, off-cambered, rutted, rocky, shelf trail switching back, up and down just above the timber between 10,000 and 11,000’ elevation. Access to the trail is by OHV only. My son 22 at the time was riding our 01 Polaris 400 Explorer.

In a relatively mild section of the shelf trail his right rear tire strikes a large embedded stone on the high side of the trail pitching his ATV to the left and off the shelf throwing the ATV into a sideways roll down the slope. Fortunately for my son he bailed off and the ATV never made contact with him. I heard him yell and looked back to see the Explorer rolling over and over at least three times coming to rest on its side. The skid plate for the frame was against a tree about 30’ down from the shelf. The slope was so steep you needed to climb up using all fours. The ground conditions were soft mostly humus, mosses, light ground cover.

Damage to the quad was remarkably light. The three of us could not even move the quad to right it let alone get it back up to the shelf trail. Luckily for us a large group of motorcycle riders (California Enduro Riders Club) were coming our way down the trail and the 10 of us managed to get the ATV right and back up to the trail. I was convinced then that a winch is a must have accessory.

I have received through ATV Frontier a winch from Gorilla Winches [now ProMark Offroad] for purpose of product evaluation. I have installed this winch on our 2005 Polaris Sportsman 500 HO. For comparison purposes, I currently have a Warn 2000lb. winch mounted on my 2004 Sportsman 700 EFI.

The waterproof feature of this winch intrigued me and I felt it worthy of an evaluation. The winch sells for $183.99 and comes with a roller fairlead, adjustable handlebar mounted rocker switch, a universal mounting plate, and metric bolts. Available for an additional cost of $49.95 is a custom mounting plate for our Polaris Sportsman 500 and was included.

The specifications for the winch can be found HERE (along with a convenient comparison chart to the equivalent Warn brand winch).

PART 1: (Installation)

I read through the operations manual and the mounting instructions that came with the special Polaris mount. Everything seemed straight forward so I began the installation by removing the front cover above the center of the front bumper. The mounting instructions tell me to use the supplied “self-tapping bolts” to secure the winch/ mounting plate to the holes in the frame. Polaris has pre-punched holes for winch mounts and also has pre-wired. The bolts supplied however were not “self-tapping“ but rather 8mm flange head standard bolts. I either had to drill and tap the frame for these bolts or drill out the punched holes and use nuts/bolts. I opted for the latter. Attaching the winch to the mounting plate with the supplied 1’ hex bolts presented another small problem and that was that the bolts were about a 1/16th of an inch too long. They actually protruded through the winch frame and pushed the plastic cover up with a noticeable dent in the plastic. These two small glitches can be easily remedied (editors note: Gorilla [now ProMark] found that a few early models of the 3000lb pro-series winch that were sent out for review had the incorrect bolts. This has been addressed and all winches now ship with the correct, self-tapping bolts)

Installing the winch/mounting plate as a unit into the front cab compartment was a squeeze to say the least. But with the aid of a flat bar and a little grinding on the front bumper plastic the unit went in. The Polaris front cover is not used once the winch is in place. The rest of the installation was a cinch. I mounted the contactor to the frame in the rear of the quad just above the gear case. There were two holes in the frame that were spaced apart just right for the mounting slots in the contactor so no drilling was required. I also used 5/16 x 1 ½” bolt, nuts w/lock washers instead of the supplied 3mm bolts.

Contactor location (click to enlarge photo)

Hopefully this will prove to be a satisfactory location. The supplied zip ties for securing the wiring were weak and broke while tightening. I used some of my own instead with no problem. The rocker switch seems to be a nice unit with a fully adjustable mounting bracket. The switch itself is small and does not take up much room. I mounted it to the left side under the bar.

The hot wire to the switch I connected to the accessory outlet on the inside of the headlight/speedometer shell. With everything wired and installed it was ready for the test. The rocker switch worked great. Forward and reverse works fine and so does the free-wheel. I was a little bit concerned at first that possibly the location of the free wheel knob would make it hard to get a hand on it as it is recessed into the front cab, but it proved to be fine for me. If I had thick gloves on I probably would have to remove them to operate the free wheel knob.

The winch looks great when mounted. The quality of the mount is excellent. I like the large holes designed into the front plate to allow air to pass through the winch motor and on into the radiator. Through the installation stage of this review, I have been very impressed with quality of the Gorilla [now ProMark Offroad] winch.

This concludes Part 1 of our Gorilla [now ProMark Offroad] winch review. We have successfully installed the winch onto our Sportsman 500.