Garhauer ? for Don!

[kgw]

Don, I have a friend cruising in the South Pacific whose boat is equipped with Garhauer hardware. His mainsheet and jib blocks have lost their ball bearings. He is getting replacement blocks sent to the Marshall Islands, but he is understandably concerned that it may happen again.

I did some googling and a fellow on one of the Catalina forums also experienced this. He attributed it to uv degradation of the balls. He talked to Guido, and was sent 300 balls for $14 and is happy. Any idea how you go about changing the balls on Garhauer blocks?

 

[Stu Jackson]

Since they are "captive", I don't know how one would do that. Garhauer is warranteed for 10 years. A pretty long time. I just Sailkote them regularly.

Anyone have any idea how to do that?

 

[Joe]

Since they are "captive", I don't know how one would do that. Garhauer is warranteed for 10 years. A pretty long time. I just Sailkote them regularly.

Anyone have any idea how to do that?

Send it to Garhauer and let them do it.

 

[RichH]

The balls are obviously inserted BEFORE the block is assembled ... and he will either need a new 'center' bearing race support which is 'pressed in' during the OEM assembly and which holds the whole block together ..... or will have to remove the old one, reinsert new 'balls' and then bring the original 'race' back to dimension tolerances and re-press.
I would doubt that Garhauer will supply that center race as if the 'repair' goes wrong Garhauer is liable. These are stainless and usually you can only 'die form' stainless sheet or 'tube' stock ..... ONCE.

Suggest he bite the bullet and simply replace with NEW.

 

[kgw]

My friend in the South Pacific did get new blocks: neither he nor I could see how it would be possible to "open" the blocks. Only the fellow on the Catalina board bought the new balls.:neutral:

There was no follow-up to the last post on the Catalina board...
http://www.c36ia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1413

 

[kgw]

More info...Garhauer suggested he upgrade to larger blocks, and credited the cost of the smaller blocks to the price of the larger blocks. So Garhauer did good. I believe the new blocks are double the load rating of the failed blocks.

I think the moral of this story is: don't undersize your blocks!

 

[kgw]

Well, here's his side of it:
(native language is German)
...overloaded application....???
i used the recommended blocks (size) decided by a garhauer dealer in NZ. want else can i do???
our main has 40sqm area. we reff to 30 sqm at 12 knot apparent wind and to 15 sqm at 22knots apparent wind... how much load can a small sail like this produce. the head sail has only 15 sqm and we run the first ref with 18 knots apparent wind... pretty small too and i don't see 2500lbs WORKINGLOAD some ware. the rope with is holding the blocks is a 6mm yachbraid. if the whole thing would be overload.... the rope would break first...

 

[sinnettc]

The garhauer stuff is rugged too. One of my track mounted, swiveling cam cleats fell off the boat on the way home from the lake a couple years ago. I found it on the side of the road with only a slight scrape from the impact - it fell 8 feet at 50-55 mph. I check the hex-head keeper pins before we hit the road now.