BobnLesley
Well-known member
We have a set of circlip pliers much like these BERGEN 4 PC 7" Circlip Pliers Internal External Bent Nose Straight Tip Snap Ring | eBay
which have done this and many other jobs fine
Refurbish a Facnor SD 180 furler drum and swivel
- Thread starter Pferdi
- Start date
We have a set of circlip pliers much like these BERGEN 4 PC 7" Circlip Pliers Internal External Bent Nose Straight Tip Snap Ring | eBay
which have done this and many other jobs fine
Mistroma
Well-known member
Thank you for all your input!!
Ok, let’s see:
I had Facnor and some dealers emailed about this some time ago. I think they prefer selling new ones if you know what I mean.
I also think that no System manufacturer produces their own bearings but couldn’t yet find exactly the ones I was looking for. I searched the NSK catalogue as well as a couple of mostly UK based bearing dealer: bearingstation, simply bearings and one I don’t remember.
Leaves us with the size of the bearings. I double checked they are metric, found it in one of the pdf I attached further up. So the size could be wrong......hm...
I cleaned swivel/ drum for years with plenty of water. That helps indeed if there is no real issue with it. When it started to degrade I switched to wd40 for cleaning which extend d life another 3-4 years. Wd40 seems to be not enough now anymore
Then a couple of you suggested replacing the balls. That sounds promising! Still there is no balls size available for SD 180. I do not have a set of circlips pliers yet, but I think I will take those things apart now. Thanks for the pics and all the hints in doing so! Silly question: does the forestay have to come off to undo the top swivel?
Re long circlippliers: can anyone please give necessary dimensions or a link? Sorry for these stupid questions. I am lockdowned in Indonesia and every parcel takes 6 weeks so it has to be right the first time.
Merci beaucoup everyone so far.
Yes, the forestay does need to be undone in order to remove the swivel.
I've removed our swivel twice now and it was pretty difficult to refit the first time because of some helpful Spanish guys with no English. They kept trying to pull the foil down.
Here's what I did.
1) Remove boom or lay it on deck (weight pulls top of mast back otherwise)
2) Slack off all standing rigging (side pretty slack and backstay(s) very slack
3) Tension up genoa halyard and another spare (main or spinnaker) near the bows (to pull mast forward and stop it falling down)
4) Slide a LONG line halfway up the foil and tie it off under tension directly in front of the boat
5) Undo screw on lower drum to allow you to lift foil slightly (slightly fuzzy on this detail but I can check a diagram)
6) Undo screw on foil under swivel to let it slide down
7) Undo bottom of forestay, swing to one side and remove drum, then swivel.
Replacement is pretty simple as long as the forestay does NOT SAG in the middle. That's why you need the long line.
I did this once when afloat and again when ashore when it was easy to get a long way in front of the bows to tension the foil support line. I also used the spinnaker halyard to pull it up halfway and a light line to pull it down later.
I didn't use the foil support line until halfway through my first attempt. It is virtually impossible to reconnect the forestay with a sagging foil but pretty easy when it is supported.
N.B. You need to pull the forestay down, not the foil. I lifted the foil with drum and used mole grips on the forestay end fitting to hold the foil and drum up. This allowed me to pull the fitting down and reconnect. Pulling the foil down will not help but I could not convince the Spanish guys on my first attempt.
Last edited:
vyv_cox
Well-known member
I replaced my top swivel last year, also SD180. In the previous season I had big problems with furling, the swivel was often very reluctant to rotate. Back home I researched the cost of a replacement and was somewhat shocked to find that it was over £500. Knowing that the old one was in a very poor state I bought one anyway. It was very different from the old one, considerably heavier and with sealed bearings, whereas the old one was open with plastic balls. Without halyard tension very stiff to turn but OK in service.
I replaced it on deck, removed the drum, supported the mast with halyards and removed the clevis pin. The swivel passed over the Sta-Lok fitting OK.
Edit: Reading Mistroma's post reminds me that I also tied the foil up but not as far up as he did.
Mistroma
Well-known member
I seem to remember the only help Facnor offered with my swivel was discount on a new one. I can't remember if the 600 euro price was before or after the discount. I had only sailed 3 seasons from new when it first siezed up and I had followed their instructions to rinse with fresh water regularly (happens automatically in Scotland ) then clean and re-grease end seals each winter and spring.
My old boat had a swivel which could be dismantled and cleaned easily. The Facnor version I have is pretty much sealed for life without specialised tools (at least I haven't discovered how to open it and Facnor would not give a hint).
) then clean and re-grease end seals each winter and spring.My old boat had a swivel which could be dismantled and cleaned easily. The Facnor version I have is pretty much sealed for life without specialised tools (at least I haven't discovered how to open it and Facnor would not give a hint).
BobnLesley
Well-known member
Those suggestions about giving some midway support to the headsail foil might be worth listening to if you've got a tall mast; ours is only about 13m, so brute force and ignorance are sufficient to deal with the 'sag' when you're trying to reconnect the forestay, but I can see how it'd be a problem with something bigger.
Mistroma
Well-known member
My mast is about 20.7m from water to top of antenna. You can only grip the foil and it is the forestay which needs to be pulled down. I did try tying something around the wire above the end fitting but force involved was still too great. Removing the sage turned it into an easy job with little or no brute force.
I guess you can get away with it with a shorter and lighter foil. Still worth remembering if the job becomes difficult with larger mast height.
vyv_cox
Well-known member
My mast is 13 metres also. It's not so much removing the sag as just holding the foil up so you can remove the clevis pin and get the swivels off and on. Might be ok without if two of you have access but no chance with our narrow bow.
Pferdi
New member
Thank you all so much for your input. I didn't have time to continue working on the furler the last days. Also it is way to windy and a bit too choppy at the moment to take down the headsail and do furler surgery. At the moment my plan is to take swivel/ drum apart and see whats going on as soon at it calms down a bit. Will tell you how it goes.
@coopec: we are lockdowned on the island of Rote in Indonesia, off the village of Nemberala. Surfing is good here.
I didn't have time to continue working on the furler the last days. Also it is way to windy and a bit too choppy at the moment to take down the headsail and do furler surgery. At the moment my plan is to take swivel/ drum apart and see whats going on as soon at it calms down a bit. Will tell you how it goes.@coopec: we are lockdowned on the island of Rote in Indonesia, off the village of Nemberala. Surfing is good here.
BobnLesley
Well-known member
Good luck with it, any problems/questions feel free to send a PM and I'll try to answer them.
Pferdi
New member
Finally I had the opportunity to disassemble the furler on a calm day. Here goes:
I secured the mast with the headsail halyard, the secondary halyard and the spinnakerpole-halyard. Also, my mast has got stays starting under the first spreader and ending on the sidedeck in the bowward side of the mast, giving a lot of extra security.
First thing was to open the four hexagon socket screws on top of the furler drum; two came out good, the other two where stuck. After fighting a little with them, I claimed a victory after a short time of only five hours. What worked in the end for one srew was using a left handed drill bit (screw extractor or easyout or Linksdreher in german). If that thing wouldn’t have snapped on the second one, I wouldn't have had to hammer out the second screw with a chisel, swearing included.
Next was the horizontal hexagon socket screw holding the foil vertically in the drum. Not much problem with that. BTW, I used PB B’LASTER penetrant spray on all srews before starting, as well as WD40.
Then the forestay had to come lose so I could take the drum of the stay. That is boat-specific, I guess (2003 Benetau 423 Oceanis Clipper), anyway I took out the splint pin out of the fat bolt holding the stay, then removed the bolt itself. Next I took of the split pin and the turnbuckle part from the thread at the end of the stay itself. All in all not a very hard of a job if you have someone supporting the stay and foil if the boat is moving like ours did. If you undo the drum you will feel the foil falling down over the stay on the deck. You do not want that. I put a pair of Locking pliers (Vise-Grips, Mole grips) on the stay just below the lower end of the foil and let the foil rest on that.
Now the first positive surprise: The drum’s top oil seal looked fabulous, the drum turned nearly as if new. I decided that no work would be needed on the drum. Yeah!! Unfortunatly though I cannot give any more infos on how it looks inside/ dimensions etc.
Getting of the swivel: There is a small hexagon socket srew where the swivel rests on when in the full down position that needed to be removed. It is not very big and sits in aluminium, so I used oil, an alan key and lots of love (=swearing and cursing) and indeed, it came out. I had to replace it later because it was bend.
Now the swivel slides down into freedom! Lets disassemble: remove the top shackle and you can remove the top plastic cover with it. Remove the small flathead screw from the bottom and the track guide and bottom cap also come off. Now you can approach two external circlips, one from the bottom, one from the top. I did not have proper circlip pliers, so I used the pliers on my Leatherman and some more love to get them out. Normal pliers should do too if the pliers tips are thin enough to fit into the clips hole and are somewhat parallel to each other. The circlips looked ok, just some minor rust. Mine are reusable. Be sure to have the swivel over some kind of bucket now because the ball bearings will come apart as soon as the clips are gone making the balls jump all over the place. I used our oven tray which is excellent because it is flat enough to work in it. Hope my wife’s not reading this.
The swivels inside looked not bad at all. Just some dirt between the balls. I wonder why that should have made my swivel jam completely. Anyway I cleaned the shit out of everything with petrol and WD40 and made it shiny. I think the bearings could have been made by Facnor themselves: It is pressed metal which then is machined out from the inside. I can nearly confirm the ball bearings dimensions given by Facnor:
I measured: 57.9mm x 75.8mm x 9mm (d x D x T)
Facnor says: 58mm x 76mm x 9mm (d x D x T)
Still, I do not have a supplier for that yet.
The balls diameter clocked in at 5mm. There are 42 of them in each bearing. In that other thread nigel1 mentioned he had to switch to 3/16" balls (4,76mm) because his new 5mm ones where to tight. I double- and triplechecked multiple of my swivels balls and always ended up with 5mm.
The inner circlips on the siwvels inner body I didn’t remove because of lack of inner circplip pliers. You do not necessarily need to remove them to be able to clean everything allthough you probably get a slighly better result.
Now, putting everything back together do not forget to put lots of anti corrosion joining stuff on all the stainless steel screws as some of them go into non-stainless steel material. I used Lanolin but other stuff, e.g. Duralac, might work as well. Just be sure to put something on there!
When putting the forestay back on, I had to get the tension out of the mast by loosening all turnbuckles aft of the mast a bit. Lots of love involved there too as the mast is up 5 years straight now, but thats a whole different story. Then we kneeled with two persons on the drum and put the bolt back, securing the mast. In another failed atteemp before, we had also tried attaching a line halfway up the foil to get rid of the slack to reattach the forestay without opening all the turnbuckles (we pulled up the shiny likenew swivel with the headsail halyard and attached one line to get everything back down again). It did not work out because, as we are anchored, we only pulled with a dingi and did never manage to bring enough tension to that line to get enough slack out to reattach the stay. Might be different if you have a fixed point like land or jetty available in front of your boat.
I do not have the sail up yet as that need a couple of stiches first, but I will give you a final status as soon as I have it up.
Thank you all giving me all the infos, hints and encouragement to get that problem solved. I now know:
A Facnor SD180 furler, as well as similar Facnor ones, can be disassembled and refurbished with an average set of tools at hand. The only tools you might need which can not be found in all toolboxes are external and internal circplip pliers. Given you can buy them for 20-30 bucks they are not so special anymore. Facnor furlers are serviceable. Facnor furlers are cleanable.
I secured the mast with the headsail halyard, the secondary halyard and the spinnakerpole-halyard. Also, my mast has got stays starting under the first spreader and ending on the sidedeck in the bowward side of the mast, giving a lot of extra security.
First thing was to open the four hexagon socket screws on top of the furler drum; two came out good, the other two where stuck. After fighting a little with them, I claimed a victory after a short time of only five hours. What worked in the end for one srew was using a left handed drill bit (screw extractor or easyout or Linksdreher in german). If that thing wouldn’t have snapped on the second one, I wouldn't have had to hammer out the second screw with a chisel, swearing included.
Next was the horizontal hexagon socket screw holding the foil vertically in the drum. Not much problem with that. BTW, I used PB B’LASTER penetrant spray on all srews before starting, as well as WD40.
Then the forestay had to come lose so I could take the drum of the stay. That is boat-specific, I guess (2003 Benetau 423 Oceanis Clipper), anyway I took out the splint pin out of the fat bolt holding the stay, then removed the bolt itself. Next I took of the split pin and the turnbuckle part from the thread at the end of the stay itself. All in all not a very hard of a job if you have someone supporting the stay and foil if the boat is moving like ours did. If you undo the drum you will feel the foil falling down over the stay on the deck. You do not want that. I put a pair of Locking pliers (Vise-Grips, Mole grips) on the stay just below the lower end of the foil and let the foil rest on that.
Now the first positive surprise: The drum’s top oil seal looked fabulous, the drum turned nearly as if new. I decided that no work would be needed on the drum. Yeah!! Unfortunatly though I cannot give any more infos on how it looks inside/ dimensions etc.
Getting of the swivel: There is a small hexagon socket srew where the swivel rests on when in the full down position that needed to be removed. It is not very big and sits in aluminium, so I used oil, an alan key and lots of love (=swearing and cursing) and indeed, it came out. I had to replace it later because it was bend.
Now the swivel slides down into freedom! Lets disassemble: remove the top shackle and you can remove the top plastic cover with it. Remove the small flathead screw from the bottom and the track guide and bottom cap also come off. Now you can approach two external circlips, one from the bottom, one from the top. I did not have proper circlip pliers, so I used the pliers on my Leatherman and some more love to get them out. Normal pliers should do too if the pliers tips are thin enough to fit into the clips hole and are somewhat parallel to each other. The circlips looked ok, just some minor rust. Mine are reusable. Be sure to have the swivel over some kind of bucket now because the ball bearings will come apart as soon as the clips are gone making the balls jump all over the place. I used our oven tray which is excellent because it is flat enough to work in it. Hope my wife’s not reading this.
The swivels inside looked not bad at all. Just some dirt between the balls. I wonder why that should have made my swivel jam completely. Anyway I cleaned the shit out of everything with petrol and WD40 and made it shiny. I think the bearings could have been made by Facnor themselves: It is pressed metal which then is machined out from the inside. I can nearly confirm the ball bearings dimensions given by Facnor:
I measured: 57.9mm x 75.8mm x 9mm (d x D x T)
Facnor says: 58mm x 76mm x 9mm (d x D x T)
Still, I do not have a supplier for that yet.
The balls diameter clocked in at 5mm. There are 42 of them in each bearing. In that other thread nigel1 mentioned he had to switch to 3/16" balls (4,76mm) because his new 5mm ones where to tight. I double- and triplechecked multiple of my swivels balls and always ended up with 5mm.
The inner circlips on the siwvels inner body I didn’t remove because of lack of inner circplip pliers. You do not necessarily need to remove them to be able to clean everything allthough you probably get a slighly better result.
Now, putting everything back together do not forget to put lots of anti corrosion joining stuff on all the stainless steel screws as some of them go into non-stainless steel material. I used Lanolin but other stuff, e.g. Duralac, might work as well. Just be sure to put something on there!
When putting the forestay back on, I had to get the tension out of the mast by loosening all turnbuckles aft of the mast a bit. Lots of love involved there too as the mast is up 5 years straight now, but thats a whole different story. Then we kneeled with two persons on the drum and put the bolt back, securing the mast. In another failed atteemp before, we had also tried attaching a line halfway up the foil to get rid of the slack to reattach the forestay without opening all the turnbuckles (we pulled up the shiny likenew swivel with the headsail halyard and attached one line to get everything back down again). It did not work out because, as we are anchored, we only pulled with a dingi and did never manage to bring enough tension to that line to get enough slack out to reattach the stay. Might be different if you have a fixed point like land or jetty available in front of your boat.
I do not have the sail up yet as that need a couple of stiches first, but I will give you a final status as soon as I have it up.
Thank you all giving me all the infos, hints and encouragement to get that problem solved. I now know:
A Facnor SD180 furler, as well as similar Facnor ones, can be disassembled and refurbished with an average set of tools at hand. The only tools you might need which can not be found in all toolboxes are external and internal circplip pliers. Given you can buy them for 20-30 bucks they are not so special anymore. Facnor furlers are serviceable. Facnor furlers are cleanable.
Attachments
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all parts apart CCW apart one inner ball bearing part and the inner circplips .jpg -
bottom external circlip.jpg -
drum seal looks good.jpg -
flathead screw holding inner track guide.jpg -
Foil Slack.jpg -
hexagon socket screw holding the swivel.jpg -
locking pliers holding up the foil.jpg -
lots of lubricant.jpg -
outer and inner bearing part.jpg -
removing track guide and bottom cap.jpg
Pferdi
New member
Beneteau381
Well-known member
Nice one, I can now order some ball bearings!
jmarijne
New member
Hi Guys,
Very happy I found this thread! It seems these units die around the same age.
I am the proud owner of a Facnor SD-130 installed on a Beneteau from 2002 It seems my top bearing is missing a ball, there is some slack in the top-end part.
If I press it from the side, it gives in with a click. So I was wondering, do you think it is feasible to open the swivel while still mounted? This would save me the work of removing the drum and releasing the forestay .
Let me know what you think,
Very happy I found this thread! It seems these units die around the same age.
I am the proud owner of a Facnor SD-130 installed on a Beneteau from 2002 It seems my top bearing is missing a ball, there is some slack in the top-end part.
If I press it from the side, it gives in with a click. So I was wondering, do you think it is feasible to open the swivel while still mounted? This would save me the work of removing the drum and releasing the forestay .
Let me know what you think,
BobnLesley
Well-known member
No.
Well, more precisely, yes you could open it, but I doubt that you'll subsequently get it back together again and are likely lose the rest of the balls in trying.
Pferdi
New member
@jmarijne
In my opinon you can try doing that. Actually, if I would have known the amount of work undoing turnbuckles and the drum, I would have tried for sure taking the swivel apart while it is still on the stay!!!
Also, if you go and try and get stuck or do not get the stuff back together just tape the swivel onto the foil in whatever dismantled state it is and THEN take care of undoing the forestay.
BobnLesley already mentioned the balls: The balls WILL come out very suddenly as they are not contained in the ball bearings. You have to do something to catch them. Or you catch at least one, get the dimensions (and post them here) and buy new ones. When I put my swivel back together I put a lot (a lot!!) of grease in the ball bearing case so the balls where like "glued" in there and did not fall out.
Give a shout of you think you need any more infos.
In my opinon you can try doing that. Actually, if I would have known the amount of work undoing turnbuckles and the drum, I would have tried for sure taking the swivel apart while it is still on the stay!!!
Also, if you go and try and get stuck or do not get the stuff back together just tape the swivel onto the foil in whatever dismantled state it is and THEN take care of undoing the forestay.
BobnLesley already mentioned the balls: The balls WILL come out very suddenly as they are not contained in the ball bearings. You have to do something to catch them. Or you catch at least one, get the dimensions (and post them here) and buy new ones. When I put my swivel back together I put a lot (a lot!!) of grease in the ball bearing case so the balls where like "glued" in there and did not fall out.
Give a shout of you think you need any more infos.
jmarijne
New member
Good,
@Pferdi, thats kind of the plan. I am currently on a location with no facilities /shops , so I just want to get the measurement of the balls so can order them online.
I cant use the foresail now anyway, so wrapping it up temporarily would be fine.
I checked for the price of a new unit, the CX30 is the newer version of the C30,
would cost 423 Euro incl. VAT in the Netherlands, delivery time 3-4 weeks, so I figured I'd give it a go
@Pferdi, thats kind of the plan. I am currently on a location with no facilities /shops , so I just want to get the measurement of the balls so can order them online.
I cant use the foresail now anyway, so wrapping it up temporarily would be fine.
I checked for the price of a new unit, the CX30 is the newer version of the C30,
would cost 423 Euro incl. VAT in the Netherlands, delivery time 3-4 weeks, so I figured I'd give it a go
ithet
Well-known member
jmarijne, I think I will also soon have a C30 unit to do for a SD-130 on my Beneteau 331. Please keep posting how you get on, or maybe a new thread.
greeny
Well-known member
Just had my C30 top swivel off, stripped, serviced and replaced. By far the hardest part is getting the swivel off and back on the forestay as I was on my own and sometimes I just needed that third hand.
I took it off one day, refurbed it in the garage that evening (took less than half an hour), then replaced it the next day. I would never try and do it in situ having seen the internals. You will lose the balls if you try. Even if you had an endless supply of replacement balls, trying to rebuild it in situ would also be almost impossible whilst keeping all the balls in place in the carrier rings. The forestay is obviously not vertical when on the stay so the balls will not sit in the carrier ring groove like they would on the workbench in a vertical position. Sticking them in with grease is an option but the swivel is supposed to be grease free.
I used a good pair of circlip pliers that were transformable from internal to external operation. Not particularly long reach but sturdy.
I took it off one day, refurbed it in the garage that evening (took less than half an hour), then replaced it the next day. I would never try and do it in situ having seen the internals. You will lose the balls if you try. Even if you had an endless supply of replacement balls, trying to rebuild it in situ would also be almost impossible whilst keeping all the balls in place in the carrier rings. The forestay is obviously not vertical when on the stay so the balls will not sit in the carrier ring groove like they would on the workbench in a vertical position. Sticking them in with grease is an option but the swivel is supposed to be grease free.
I used a good pair of circlip pliers that were transformable from internal to external operation. Not particularly long reach but sturdy.
nigel1
Active member
Rather than use grease to keep the balls in place, something like tomato ketchup can be used and then once reassembled, can be flushed out with water.
ithet
Well-known member
What parts did you replace?