Lubricating Lewmar winches

[crieders]

Might as well take the winches apart and lubricate them after 20 years. Whats a good link for that or other suggestion? Thanks

[Stu Jackson]

Sources: Lewmar and Calder's books.  Google and, dare I suggest  , a search on "winch service" on this message board.

You'll most likely want to buy a repair kit which comes with pawls, springs and sometime you have to buy grease separately.

It's pretty easy, take a camera so you remember what you did.  I did mine before we had a camera and made a sketch as I worked.

Many will say "get a cardboard box and make a hole in it to catch flying pawls and springs."  Never happened to me.  And even if the old ones flew off, that's why I bought the repair kit!

Like everything else the first one always takes longer.

I used kerosene for the solvent.

[Ron Hill]

Cliff : Go to Lewmar and they will give you a pamphlet on how to disassemble, lube and repair.

[Ken Juul]

During a Q & A with a Lewmar rep he recommended WD40 as the cleaner.  A lot less harsh on the hands.  Quite often they will give little tubes of winch lube away at the big boat shows or at the Catalina Rendevous.

[David Sanner]

I just broke a pawl so I finally got around to a full clean and lube.
(It happened 20 mins before a race start but we had the drum off,
broken parts removed and put back in time for the start.)

I later picked up new springs and pawls at West Marine.

Lots of options for solvents.  I used mineral spirits which seemed to work
well but the old hardened grease still needed to be brushed out after soaking.   
Messy job anyway you go at it... (lots of old towels and gloves that
don't dissolve in the solvent - like one of mine did!)

Here's a link to the service manual.
http://www.pyacht.com/Lewmar-Winch-Service-Manual.pdf

The nice thing about our Lewmar winches, considering all the parts,
is that they only go back together one way.

Depending on your year/model there are either four screws
or a spin on ring on top of the winch.  Once that is off, the
feeder arm is removed and small inserts (collets) are slid out and
the entire drum lifts off.  Be careful as there two sets of bearings and
at least one of them will likely stay inside the drum so watch they
don't slip out and overboard.

Then there are two identical pins on the base that lift out
and all 4 gears slide out.  Only thing left is the center
shaft which also lifts out.

I watched a Lewmar demo at a boat show and he
stressed about making sure everything is coated in
grease but just a very thin coat... enough to make it
sticky but no more.  About what would be left behind after
a light wipe with a cloth.  Extra grease just attracts more dirt,
gums things up and makes it harder to clean next time.

The only other lubricant required is a few drops of any
lightweight oil for the pawls & springs as grease in the pawls
will likely gum up and cause a failure.  I used the Lewmar brand
grease as I had a tube of it.

Finally there's also one trick to getting things back together.
Remember to lift the center shaft a quarter inch or so to
get the collets to slide back in place.

[David Sanner]

I went ahead and added a wiki page for servicing Lewmar winches.

[wiki]Clean and Lube your winches[/wiki]

[Michael Shaner]

Very nice wikiwork Mr. Sanner!

[Rick Allen]

Also, a couple of videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpcPlJUGN4w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_MjOJYYZ4A

[BillG]

If you have  Maxwell winches on your boat, see the August 2007 tech notes for cleaning and disassembly.