I have 2 winches onboard my vessel which have never been taken apart and cleaned or lubricated. Since I have never done this I am looking for info, advice, etc on this project. thank you evan
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Evan, let's rouse Rob Rich from his winter nap!!
Evan, I own a 272 also and have 2 Barlow #19's and 1 Barlow #15 winch on board. I planned to remove the winches late this winter and rebuild them using the beautiful pix and explanation that Rob Rich posted in February. I wisely
printed the whole set of pix and filed them in my maintenance notebook. I say wisely because when I tried to find the info in the forum archives for you, I came up empty. Rob rebuilt Barient winches, but the pix would be helpful no matter what brand you might have on board. Maybe we can get Rob to repost the whole thing. It is too much good information to be lost forever in cyberspace. How about it, Rob? I did find some information on Barlow winches by doing a search for "Barlow winches" duh! Came up with an Australian company which sells replacement parts. There are also some helpful step-by-step disassembly and assembly instructions aat that site that you may want to print out. If you find any other info, I'd appreciate it if you shared it with the rest of us Barlow winchers. Tom
Evan, I own a 272 also and have 2 Barlow #19's and 1 Barlow #15 winch on board. I planned to remove the winches late this winter and rebuild them using the beautiful pix and explanation that Rob Rich posted in February. I wisely
printed the whole set of pix and filed them in my maintenance notebook. I say wisely because when I tried to find the info in the forum archives for you, I came up empty. Rob rebuilt Barient winches, but the pix would be helpful no matter what brand you might have on board. Maybe we can get Rob to repost the whole thing. It is too much good information to be lost forever in cyberspace. How about it, Rob? I did find some information on Barlow winches by doing a search for "Barlow winches" duh! Came up with an Australian company which sells replacement parts. There are also some helpful step-by-step disassembly and assembly instructions aat that site that you may want to print out. If you find any other info, I'd appreciate it if you shared it with the rest of us Barlow winchers. TomWinches
Evan and Tom - you're going to find some differences when you go to clean your winches but they basically all similar. I would remove the whole thing from the deck and take them home. I got a rubbermaid bin from Home Depot and took the winches apart in it, then filled it with decreaser and let the mess sit. Partswise - I found Lewmar pawls and springs worked just fine. Justin - O'day Owners' Web
Evan and Tom - you're going to find some differences when you go to clean your winches but they basically all similar. I would remove the whole thing from the deck and take them home. I got a rubbermaid bin from Home Depot and took the winches apart in it, then filled it with decreaser and let the mess sit. Partswise - I found Lewmar pawls and springs worked just fine. Justin - O'day Owners' Web
Thanks, Justin
As usual your input is helpful. When did you rebuild your winches and if you had to replace parts, did you have them on hand? Tom
As usual your input is helpful. When did you rebuild your winches and if you had to replace parts, did you have them on hand? Tom
Doing my wiches
I did my winches last winter at the end of my first season with this boat. It was part of a major refit which ultimately included removing every piece of deck hardware and rebedding it, replacing anything significantly worn. Ugly job but it did make the Maine winter go by more quickly. Recut all the trim for the companionway etc while we did it. I have varriety of winches on my boat. The primaries are the original Lewmar two speeds. The halyard winch on the mast is a Barlow. I also have two Barons that will eventually be on the coach roof for the halyards and reefing lines when I get around to bringing the rest of it all aft. Hate that student budget. The winches come apart differently. The Lewmars have snap rings around the drive orifice. The Barlow had a big flat head screw at the bottom of the drive orifice. The Barons have a hex screw in there. I probably could have gotten away with just cleaning things and putting it all back together. Once everything was clean it was in reasonable shape, but I was at that point considering a 90 mile crossing from Maine to Nova Scotia in my little boat and was in perfectionist mode. The crossing never happened but the increased cost for new springs and couple of pawls was about $5, so I think the peace of mind worthwhile. My winches were slipping before I cleaned them. I discovered this was because the previous owner (or maybe it was even the buy before him who last cleaned the winches) had greased the pawls and springs and the stiction of the grease was sometimes holding the pawls open. It is vital that the body of the winch be greased where is it load bearing, but that the pawls only be oiled. I use very light machine oil. My winches now make a very satisfying click, like the noise backpeddling on a bicycle. I opened them mid-season and re-oiled. They'll be re-oiled again before I launch in April but they turn smoothly so I'll probably wait another season before regreasing. My primaries are not self-tailing. While I did all this I added 'winchers' - those silly blue ring you see on some boats. Best $10 I've spent. They hard to put on but not impossible. I found that putting them in a tupperware container full of water and putting the whole thing in the microwave for a little while softened them up enough to slide over the winch heads. These things are great. They will not really let you winch without tailing at all but they let you use both hand to crank on a turn, then toss the slack in the tail aside. More important though, they let act like cleats so that you can drop your sheet without actually making it fast. After acheiving the desired sail angle, I run the tail counterclockwise around the winch leaving a bite on the wincher. It holds but if I need to depower quickly a flick of the tail and the sail runs. As soon as the slack is out, however, you have full control of the friction against the winch again. I'm sold on them. Its a small thing but handy short-handed. Justin - O'day Owners' Web
I did my winches last winter at the end of my first season with this boat. It was part of a major refit which ultimately included removing every piece of deck hardware and rebedding it, replacing anything significantly worn. Ugly job but it did make the Maine winter go by more quickly. Recut all the trim for the companionway etc while we did it. I have varriety of winches on my boat. The primaries are the original Lewmar two speeds. The halyard winch on the mast is a Barlow. I also have two Barons that will eventually be on the coach roof for the halyards and reefing lines when I get around to bringing the rest of it all aft. Hate that student budget. The winches come apart differently. The Lewmars have snap rings around the drive orifice. The Barlow had a big flat head screw at the bottom of the drive orifice. The Barons have a hex screw in there. I probably could have gotten away with just cleaning things and putting it all back together. Once everything was clean it was in reasonable shape, but I was at that point considering a 90 mile crossing from Maine to Nova Scotia in my little boat and was in perfectionist mode. The crossing never happened but the increased cost for new springs and couple of pawls was about $5, so I think the peace of mind worthwhile. My winches were slipping before I cleaned them. I discovered this was because the previous owner (or maybe it was even the buy before him who last cleaned the winches) had greased the pawls and springs and the stiction of the grease was sometimes holding the pawls open. It is vital that the body of the winch be greased where is it load bearing, but that the pawls only be oiled. I use very light machine oil. My winches now make a very satisfying click, like the noise backpeddling on a bicycle. I opened them mid-season and re-oiled. They'll be re-oiled again before I launch in April but they turn smoothly so I'll probably wait another season before regreasing. My primaries are not self-tailing. While I did all this I added 'winchers' - those silly blue ring you see on some boats. Best $10 I've spent. They hard to put on but not impossible. I found that putting them in a tupperware container full of water and putting the whole thing in the microwave for a little while softened them up enough to slide over the winch heads. These things are great. They will not really let you winch without tailing at all but they let you use both hand to crank on a turn, then toss the slack in the tail aside. More important though, they let act like cleats so that you can drop your sheet without actually making it fast. After acheiving the desired sail angle, I run the tail counterclockwise around the winch leaving a bite on the wincher. It holds but if I need to depower quickly a flick of the tail and the sail runs. As soon as the slack is out, however, you have full control of the friction against the winch again. I'm sold on them. Its a small thing but handy short-handed. Justin - O'day Owners' Web
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