Does any one have these winches on their boat. They have a swivelling plastic arm to guide the sheet into the cleat at the top. The problem is that they are 30-40 years old and the plastic is now deteriorated and jammed so that they don't swivel. The rathcet pawls on one needed cleaning so I disassembled it. Does anyone have any tips for bringing the plastic part back to life? At the moment its soaking in silicone lube.
Winch when new.
The offending part.
The disassembled winch.
I saw that stainless one as well. And I also thought about getting a 3D scan of the existing part, if and when I snap it off (which looks likely), and then getting it printed in composite.
Soaking in silicone oil had no effect, so now its soaking in WD40 which will probably dissolve it...
Persistence, patience and WD40 won the day! Back together and clicking away nicely. Now to try and resurrect the other one. This is a very strange winch design, the only way to wrap the line around the drum is to feed it under the stainless tube. Anyway, looking forward to testing it out on the water. I also plan to use this self-tailing winch to raise the mast, fingers crossed...
