almost funny battery story

A few weeks ago I bought a '97 Discovery SD with 4.0 V8. One of the selling points was the lightly used Warn iX8000 winch and dual battery set-up. The owner explained to me how it was a good idea to have a separate battery for the winch and generally I agree. He also said the winch battery was connected to the charging system through an "isolator". This last weekend I finally had a chance to check the batteries and wiring. There was a rather thin wire running from the + terminal of the starting battery to one side of a starter solenoid. On the other side of the solenoid there was a similar wire running to the + on the winch battery. No wires hooked up to the control terminals on the solenoid?? Started the Rover and measured voltage at batteries: 14V at starting battery and 10.4V at winch battery !! Yep, winch battery has never been hooked up to charging circuit. Took battery to garage to have it tested and its totally dead as I expected. The funny part comes in when I imagine the former owner trying to winch himself out of a mud hole using a 10.4 volt battery.

My plan is to buy a continuous duty solenoid and connect the control wire to a source of 12v that is only present when the engine is running. Does anyone happen to know if there is a conveniently located source under the Discovery hood or do I need to go all the way to the interior fuse panel? I will also install a high amperage jumper switch that will allow me to use the winch battery to start the Rover in the case where I run the starting battery dead (those occasions where I forget the chime is saying to me "Hey stupid, you've left your headlights on"). Any suggestions welcome.

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Gordon Wedman
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