Plastimo 609S furler ball bearings

[zulloboy]

Anyone au fait with the gizzards of these furlers?

I managed to undo the wrong bolts on the drum, and a bunch of ball bearings jumped ship. They are a mixture of delrin and stainless steel, and I don't know if they should be fitted alternately in each race, or if all the delrins go in one race and all the SS in the other? I assume if this were the case the SS would go in the lower race as it takes the full halyard tension.

The Plastimo website does a superb job of preventing me from asking the question of the manufacturer. Very Gallic.

Cheers, Graeme

 

[SvenH]

I suspect that mixing them is pointless but it might make sense that SS is used for high loads and the delrin ones for less high loads.

 

[zulloboy]

Thanks, but I have advice from Ocean Chandlery, who sell the balls, that they are indeed to be installed alternating delrin/ss. And my assumption re tension is incorrect - the tension force is taken by the drum bolts, not the bearings.

 

[wf2]

Thanks Zulloboy,

for the only reference on the internet to the correct order for reinstalling the Delrin and stainless ball bearings in a Plastimo 608s furling drum.

I am replacing an aged forestay wire.
it is at least 15 years old, but the Hunter Channel 27 it belongs to was built in 1999 and I have no record of it ever being changed.

Although designed to allow the swaged end to be extracted through the drum
I was unable to extract the forestay swaged ring, because I could not extract the plastic guide bush through which the wire passes through the top section of the drum.

I had to undo the 4 securing bolts while holding the top and bottom halves of the drum (over a bucket under the pushpit).
The mixed ball bearings tumbled into the bucket as predicted on other threads,
There are 28 balls of each type

I was then able to hammer out the guide bush.

Here are a couple of possible tips learned
- my 25 year old bearings were in very good nick and just needed washing off
- I used barkeepers friend and hot and boiling water to clean all the parts of the drum

- there was NO grease at all in the races.
- it might have been possible to extract the bush from above by using a hacksaw or Drexel to destroy its structure.

But iI if you do need to split the drum and reinstall the bearing
- other forums have suggested using
- grease or syrup, or Taffy or shaving foam
- to hold the alternating plastic and metal balls in the half race while
- I used hoisin sauce , it worked OK but something a bit stickier would have been easier.

To reassemble the bearings
No photographs because the job needs two or three hands
- place the parts on a tray so nothing gets lost
- place the upper part of the cleaned drum upside down on the tray
- place the loose metal race facing concave up inside the plastic drum
- dip the balls in your dissolvable sticky stuff of choice
- I used tweezers to drop the balls and my finger to push them out onto the race
- carefully place the internal core of the drum, which includes the upper part of the race, onto the the drum half

The second race is attached to the black core
Balancing the sticky balls seemed harder at first because the steel balls ket falling off
- so I placed the Delrin balls all round the race leaving room for alternate steel balls
- then I dropped a the second freestanding metal race onto the plastic balls to retain the bearings
- I was able to gently squeeze the alternating metal balls under the race
- dexterity required, some of the metal balls did have to be placed more than once
- I taped the two halves together so that I could insert and tighten the 4 bolts

Donald

 

[zulloboy]

Well done Donald and glad to have helped. They are good units. It's just a pity I let my impatience ruin mine when disassembling it. But I can't fault the 609S.