furlex foil help

[gonad]

morning all,
the outer foil on my furler has come out at the bottom I took down the sail to see if I had hoisted it too high but no luck trying to pull it back down. Removed drum,unscrewed bottom and had a look at the cone seems to be ok any suggestions greatly appreciated jon

 

[Gin]

I have a Furlex 100. The cone to which you refer, if the wire terminal in a StaLok terminal under the lower swivel assembly, as I have ,must be OK otherwise the mast is likely to fall.

What I think has happened for the extrusion to lift up and clear of the lower swivel assembly is :-

the internal spring which is the connecting device for each of the extrusion sections and each of which are held in place by a fibre glass, internal spacer rod, has manageg to slip out of the hole for the lower spring which locates in a hole inside the adapter on the lower swivel assembly- this would expose the forestay wire and would free the extrusion from the rotating drum- so if the drum rotates and the extrusion does not that should prove the point.

Now how this spring should have come free without disturbing the inner spacer rods up the whole length of the extrusion, unless they were incorrectly fitted in the first place and there is some end float which has manifested itself at the adapter end I can't imagine. Another unlikely possibility is that the spring, which is only a short length of spring steel rod with a small right angle hook at either end, has snapped.

If either of these two suggestions prove correct then the assembly needs to be taken down and dismantled and the necessary repair done- so far as I know it can't be done in situ- one of the disadvantages of Furlex.

If there is a fault with the adapter, which is the cone shape top to the lower swivel asembly you will be able to peep inside it if the extrusion has risen away from the swivel and then perhaps see why the spring has come out of the locating hole but once again, a dismantle will be needed to correct matters.

I assume you have the installers/owners manual which has the diagrams but if not I seem to remember they can be downloaded. If you get stuck send a PM with your e-mail address and I will try to scan and send some pictures from my manual when I get some time

Best of luck and I hope this helps to resolve your problem

 

[michael_w]

If it's a Furlex 200 series I can help.

I've had two of these fail and been replaced under warranty, the third was heading for failure but I sold the boat.

There is a discrepancy between the Swedish instructions and the English translation. The error leads to a 100mm gap in the inner parts, allowing the foil to part, usually at the top most section. Here the cure is to re-assamble and pin the outer foil to the inner jointing piece. The easiest way to pin is to drill and screw small self-tappers in, cutting off the heads afterwards.

The problems at the bottom end of this crummy gear is caused by the entire torque loads being taken on a bit of plastic and the two small torx bolts. The torx bolts spit the dummy and in the process chew up the bottom of the foil. Without them the foil will drop into the lower bearing carrier and jam solid....

I carried out a temporary cure in the middle of the Atlantic with machine screws, taps and Duralac, plus a few turns of self amalgamating to stop the machine screws coming out.

The torx screws must be secured with Loctite, a point missed in the instructions....

 

[Gin]

I have been singularly unimpressed with the complicated and unnecessarily labyrinthine installation instructions.

Mine was a £1000 wasted but I'm stuck with it

 

[MoodySabre]

I've got a 20 year old Furlex B (and can email you the manual). When I hoist the genoa the foil rides up out of the drum but I just pull it back down again. Once the sail is up it doesn't come out again. I don't know if something is supposed to hold it but it works so hey. I do have the genoa halyard quite loose otherwise it is very hard work to reef.

 

[oldestgit]

Not an unusual problem MoodySabre.

I also have the Furlex Mk2. B.
The problem is usually caused by winching the Genoa Halyard to full tension while furled, it breaks the little spring wire sections inside.
The proper repair is a full removal and strip down of the furling gear and then replace the little spring wire clips, one for each joint, however the recognised mod (by Furlex) is to drill the front lower section and screw through with a 6mm self tapper.

Did mine a couple of years ago and no further problems, just keep reminding anyone aboard not winch on halyard tension until the Genoa is un furled.

Worth doing the mod as it only takes about 10 minutes.

Enjoy…….. Peter

 

[gonad]

thanks all let the tension off halyard and banged it back in seems to have done the trick