I have a Hood furler that is very hard to turn on my 40.5. Have any of you experiance re-building, or have any tips to repair it? Thanks in advance for your thoughts, Ron.
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Archives
Check the archives. There are articles on Hood providing free furling race upgrades to owners of units manufactured during a few years.
Check the archives. There are articles on Hood providing free furling race upgrades to owners of units manufactured during a few years.
S
SteveC
Hood Furler
Ron, I'm going through the 'rebuild' process myself with the 810LD model. First obvious things to look for are existing halyard wrap, fair leads for the furling line and a secure tack to prevent the entire unit from rising and catching the 'drum' in the cutout in the anchor well. Mine worked fairly well but now will suddenly sieze while furling. I can slightly unfurl then refurl to continue the process. I have ordered all the bearings to replace them and will check the line stripper to make sure that is ok. The unit does not seem to have many complex parts so I'm pretty sure that it'll work ok when I'm finished. Incidently, mine was incorrectly set up with 3/8" line originally by the dealer. I was wondering why it would occasionally slip when being furled/reefed. When I replaced that line with the proper 7/16" line and made sure all leads were fair, the thing worked better than ever...
Ron, I'm going through the 'rebuild' process myself with the 810LD model. First obvious things to look for are existing halyard wrap, fair leads for the furling line and a secure tack to prevent the entire unit from rising and catching the 'drum' in the cutout in the anchor well. Mine worked fairly well but now will suddenly sieze while furling. I can slightly unfurl then refurl to continue the process. I have ordered all the bearings to replace them and will check the line stripper to make sure that is ok. The unit does not seem to have many complex parts so I'm pretty sure that it'll work ok when I'm finished. Incidently, mine was incorrectly set up with 3/8" line originally by the dealer. I was wondering why it would occasionally slip when being furled/reefed. When I replaced that line with the proper 7/16" line and made sure all leads were fair, the thing worked better than ever...
B
Bryan
Piece of cake
I am also in the process of replacing the original continuous line furler. The first thing to do is to wash your existing drum and the halyard swivel thoroughly with fresh water. They get salk and junk in them which foul it up. That may solver your problem. If that doesn't work the bearings in your drum may be going. The bearings on my old drum had gotten so bad that I could barely turn the drum, and needed to replace the whole unit. I never liked the continuous line system anyway. Hood (check them at pompanette.com) offered an upgrade to replace the drum unit only with a single line system for about $450, which is a lot cheaper than replacing the whole unit (they can also replace the bearings in your old drum for a lower price.) Plus I was encourage by the fact that Hood advertised that the replacement was "easy" and a prior post here on the HOW which said the replacement was a "piece of cake". In their defense, it probably should be, but the process has been a nightmare for me. One of those everything that could go wrong did go wrong things. It would have helped if I had gotten a manual from Hood with the new replacement drum so I knew what I was doing, but I tried to figure it out myself. Getting my forestay off was a real pain, maybe it has been on too tight. Once I did get it off, it took me a while to figure out how the drum unit was locked into the extrusion tube (which wraps around the forestay), but I finally did. I put the new drum on and retensioned the forestay. Then I couldn't get the pieces that lock the top of the drum tube into the extusion tube to fit because the extrusion tube was about an inch too long. It would work if I loosened the forestay, but then I couldn't retension the forestay because the turnbuckle is covered by the drum tube on those nifty recessed furler comparnment Hunter used to make. So I determined I needed to trim about 1" off the extrusion tube. Since the extrusion tube is riveted together and you cannot trim the bottom (because it is drilled for the pieces that lock it into the furler tube) I thought I'd slide the extrusion tube off the forestay and cut it off the top. This was a tragic move, made even more tragic by my incredibly dumb act of not tying a line to the bottom of the forestay before trying to slide it out. The extrusion tube slid about 6' down the forestay and promptly jammed, refusing to go in our out. So after about 8 hours effort the first day, we left the forestay with the extrusion tube dangling off the side of the boat. The next Thursday, with Hurricane Irene coming the next day (it sank 8 boats, including a 40' wooden yawl) we really wanted to get the forestay back on (we had the jib halyard supporting the mast). I had called Hood which sent me a manual and learned we had to drill out the rivets to get the the bottom section of the extrusion tube off, which we needed to do clear the forestay, and I figured I'd trim the top part of the bottom section to shorten it. "Drill out the rivets and the section should slide right off," they said. "Piece of cake." I got a punch and some new rivets (a small bag was $30) and started drilling. The first rivet was very difficult to drill out, but the second one came right out. Then the damned bottom section of the extrusion tube wouldn't slide off. There are inner liner sections of tubing inside the joints of extrusion tube that support the sections (called splice pieces), and we couldn't get the section to come off. We hammered the hell out of the top of the bottom section (which we were going to cut anyway) trying to get it off the splice pieces. Wouldn't come off. So we drilled out the next set of rivets on the next section up. We finally got that section off, exposing the inner splice pieces which were jammed in the bottome section. We couldn't get the splice pieces out of the bottom section. Then we tried to force the forestay out of the bottom section (so we could at least reattach it to the boat, banging it with a hammer and pliers. No good. Jammed too tight. Finally I took a big screwdrive and stuck it in a hole in the splice piece which was stuck in the bottom extrusion section and finally was able to hammer it out, which freed the forestay. Now all we gotta do is trim the top of the bottom section of the extrusion tube, put it all back together and we have finally won, right? Wrong. I learned that the reason why it was so difficult to drill out that first rivet was that the forestay was jammed against the rivet hole, and in the process we drilled a nick in the forestay cutting two strands. So now we have to get a new (longer) stud put on on the bottom of the forestay. Which shouldn't be so much of a problem except that all the riggers around here are jammed because of all the damage from hurricane Irene. I found a guy last week who was going to come out and do it, but when I called him earlier this week, he was in the hospital after stepping into an open hatch and cracking his ribs. Someday I hope to get the forestay fixed, re-rivet the sections of the (now shorter) extrusion tube, put the new furler drum on and go sailing again. My gnawing fear is that I trimmed too much off the extrusion tube and somehow my jib won't hoist properly. So what's the moral of all this? Best laid plans of mice and men? Don't do it yourself? Don't buy a sailboat? I don't know. Replacing the furler drum shouldn't have been that much of a headache. Other (luckier, smarter or more experienced) people have replaced the furler and it apparently was a "piece of cake." But you never know when Murphy's law will kick in (again and again). If you decide to go this route, email me at BCleve@Bellsouth.net and I'll be happy to share some thoughts to hopefully help you avoid some of my experiences.
I am also in the process of replacing the original continuous line furler. The first thing to do is to wash your existing drum and the halyard swivel thoroughly with fresh water. They get salk and junk in them which foul it up. That may solver your problem. If that doesn't work the bearings in your drum may be going. The bearings on my old drum had gotten so bad that I could barely turn the drum, and needed to replace the whole unit. I never liked the continuous line system anyway. Hood (check them at pompanette.com) offered an upgrade to replace the drum unit only with a single line system for about $450, which is a lot cheaper than replacing the whole unit (they can also replace the bearings in your old drum for a lower price.) Plus I was encourage by the fact that Hood advertised that the replacement was "easy" and a prior post here on the HOW which said the replacement was a "piece of cake". In their defense, it probably should be, but the process has been a nightmare for me. One of those everything that could go wrong did go wrong things. It would have helped if I had gotten a manual from Hood with the new replacement drum so I knew what I was doing, but I tried to figure it out myself. Getting my forestay off was a real pain, maybe it has been on too tight. Once I did get it off, it took me a while to figure out how the drum unit was locked into the extrusion tube (which wraps around the forestay), but I finally did. I put the new drum on and retensioned the forestay. Then I couldn't get the pieces that lock the top of the drum tube into the extusion tube to fit because the extrusion tube was about an inch too long. It would work if I loosened the forestay, but then I couldn't retension the forestay because the turnbuckle is covered by the drum tube on those nifty recessed furler comparnment Hunter used to make. So I determined I needed to trim about 1" off the extrusion tube. Since the extrusion tube is riveted together and you cannot trim the bottom (because it is drilled for the pieces that lock it into the furler tube) I thought I'd slide the extrusion tube off the forestay and cut it off the top. This was a tragic move, made even more tragic by my incredibly dumb act of not tying a line to the bottom of the forestay before trying to slide it out. The extrusion tube slid about 6' down the forestay and promptly jammed, refusing to go in our out. So after about 8 hours effort the first day, we left the forestay with the extrusion tube dangling off the side of the boat. The next Thursday, with Hurricane Irene coming the next day (it sank 8 boats, including a 40' wooden yawl) we really wanted to get the forestay back on (we had the jib halyard supporting the mast). I had called Hood which sent me a manual and learned we had to drill out the rivets to get the the bottom section of the extrusion tube off, which we needed to do clear the forestay, and I figured I'd trim the top part of the bottom section to shorten it. "Drill out the rivets and the section should slide right off," they said. "Piece of cake." I got a punch and some new rivets (a small bag was $30) and started drilling. The first rivet was very difficult to drill out, but the second one came right out. Then the damned bottom section of the extrusion tube wouldn't slide off. There are inner liner sections of tubing inside the joints of extrusion tube that support the sections (called splice pieces), and we couldn't get the section to come off. We hammered the hell out of the top of the bottom section (which we were going to cut anyway) trying to get it off the splice pieces. Wouldn't come off. So we drilled out the next set of rivets on the next section up. We finally got that section off, exposing the inner splice pieces which were jammed in the bottome section. We couldn't get the splice pieces out of the bottom section. Then we tried to force the forestay out of the bottom section (so we could at least reattach it to the boat, banging it with a hammer and pliers. No good. Jammed too tight. Finally I took a big screwdrive and stuck it in a hole in the splice piece which was stuck in the bottom extrusion section and finally was able to hammer it out, which freed the forestay. Now all we gotta do is trim the top of the bottom section of the extrusion tube, put it all back together and we have finally won, right? Wrong. I learned that the reason why it was so difficult to drill out that first rivet was that the forestay was jammed against the rivet hole, and in the process we drilled a nick in the forestay cutting two strands. So now we have to get a new (longer) stud put on on the bottom of the forestay. Which shouldn't be so much of a problem except that all the riggers around here are jammed because of all the damage from hurricane Irene. I found a guy last week who was going to come out and do it, but when I called him earlier this week, he was in the hospital after stepping into an open hatch and cracking his ribs. Someday I hope to get the forestay fixed, re-rivet the sections of the (now shorter) extrusion tube, put the new furler drum on and go sailing again. My gnawing fear is that I trimmed too much off the extrusion tube and somehow my jib won't hoist properly. So what's the moral of all this? Best laid plans of mice and men? Don't do it yourself? Don't buy a sailboat? I don't know. Replacing the furler drum shouldn't have been that much of a headache. Other (luckier, smarter or more experienced) people have replaced the furler and it apparently was a "piece of cake." But you never know when Murphy's law will kick in (again and again). If you decide to go this route, email me at BCleve@Bellsouth.net and I'll be happy to share some thoughts to hopefully help you avoid some of my experiences.
D
Dan Arsenault
Stay with it!
I replaced our Hood with a Harken and have regreted it every since. Hood is good about getting you what you need as I rebuilt the Hood on our 30 and found it to be a piece of cake and worth the time. Good Luck, Kitchen slave Dan
I replaced our Hood with a Harken and have regreted it every since. Hood is good about getting you what you need as I rebuilt the Hood on our 30 and found it to be a piece of cake and worth the time. Good Luck, Kitchen slave Dan
D
David
buy a Schaefer
Replace the roller fuller Ron. Also change the angle by raising up the furler. The hood is never going to work well at it's current angle in the forward ancor locker. Replace with a better system and most of the problems will go away. Schaefer is the best.
Replace the roller fuller Ron. Also change the angle by raising up the furler. The hood is never going to work well at it's current angle in the forward ancor locker. Replace with a better system and most of the problems will go away. Schaefer is the best.
D
David
buy a Schaefer
Replace the roller fuller Ron. Also change the angle by raising up the furler. The hood is never going to work well at it's current angle in the forward ancor locker. Replace with a better system and most of the problems will go away. Schaefer is the best.
Replace the roller fuller Ron. Also change the angle by raising up the furler. The hood is never going to work well at it's current angle in the forward ancor locker. Replace with a better system and most of the problems will go away. Schaefer is the best.
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