Help, Profurl Furling drum lube

cozzykim

cozzykim

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In the Ionian on a friend's boat trying to help him free up a tight Profurl roller furling drum.

Does anyone know if and how this could be lubricated without dismantling?

It's quite a big drum, about 8", 48' boat, we don't want to undo anything that will result in a downed mast :eek:
 
There are some diagrams of Profurl mechanisms here http://www.profurl.com/images/info_pages/2010-profurl-catalogue-english-94.pdf
It is a big PDF file, so scroll down to page 40 and continue from there.
On my older Profulf there is not any way to lubricate the bottom of the thing, which contains sealed bearings. The foil rotates freely around the wire forestay, with plastic bearings at every joint in the foil. At the top however there is another sealed bearing assembly, and that is a bit stiff to turn on mine. I am told that the fact that it is not as free running as I would like is normal, and the bearings have no provision for lubrication.

If you feel the need to remove the furler, be warned that it would require you to secure the mast with halyards, lift the furler by removing the two plastic plugs that hold it to the stainless steel straps, and detach the forestay from the bow fitting. The entire furler cannot then be removed, because the fittings in the foils will not pass over the swage on the forestay. All you can remove is the bottom unit by separating it from the foils. If you try that, good luck with the stainless steel button head screws fitting the drum unit to the foils, as they are usually found to be seized in place in the aluminium body. If you do manage to get the drum off I have found this website where someone has posted pictures of the bearing being removed, though the video does not work. http://mattholmes.com/blog/?p=67

P.S. Go to the "posting" link on the second line of the mattholmes blog for a more detailed explanation of the bearing replacement method, for one specific Profurl model.
 
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I have stripped and replaced the bearing (Singular) in both the top and bottom of my Profurl and there is no whay to lubricate either of them once they are re-assembled. You can remove the whole rig with the mast still in situ. One of the ways that Profurl suggest installing a new reefing system is by doing it with the mast still up. All the bits will slide over the swag fitting. I use the spi halyard to support the mast anf the genoa halyard to raise the bits stopping to screw them together as you go. It is a bit of a pig on your own but on a 40' mast it is do-able.
 
rhumlady said:
I have stripped and replaced the bearing (Singular) in both the top and bottom of my Profurl and there is no whay to lubricate either of them once they are re-assembled. You can remove the whole rig with the mast still in situ. One of the ways that Profurl suggest installing a new reefing system is by doing it with the mast still up. All the bits will slide over the swag fitting. I use the spi halyard to support the mast anf the genoa halyard to raise the bits stopping to screw them together as you go. It is a bit of a pig on your own but on a 40' mast it is do-able.
Click to expand...

Interesting that you say all the bits will slide over the swage fitting, because on my Profurl furler they definitely will not do so. The only way to slide them all off is to break each joint in the foil and remove all of the two part plastic bearings. When I re-rigged the mast was down, and the forestay off, but the furler could not be removed because some of the foil joints were seized together. In order to put a swage onto the bottom of the new forestay the whole thing was taken to the swaging machine, and only the bottom part including the furling drum removed (after grinding a slot in one of the screws and heating it with a blowlamp to enable it to be undone) to enable the swage to be fitted.

Of course if you are fitting a new one the two piece plastic bearings enable it to be assembled over a made up forestay, but doing it in reverse with an old unit is in the difficult to impossible category, as I found out.
 
I see your point about trying to get the sections over the swage terminal without splitting each section and agree it can't be done. Mine is a very old P31 which like yours had some of the set screws corroded in place but I eventually managed to get them all free. I did have to drill a couple out though. I now remove it each winter although it has been off the boat for 5 years due to an extended refit. Getting the plastic bearings is now very difficult but I have a spare pair stashed away.
 
Norman_E said:
I have found this website where someone has posted pictures of the bearing being removed, though the video does not work. http://mattholmes.com/blog/?p=67

P.S. Go to the "posting" link on the second line of the mattholmes blog for a more detailed explanation of the bearing replacement method, for one specific Profurl model.
Click to expand...
It looks like the site has been revamped
Profurl link is now Maintenance Log for Syzygy » Replaced Profurl furler bearings and seals
The link above points to Profurl Bearings
where the main details are.
 
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