Sparcraft Ocean Vang c.1998

[dje67]

My Beneteau 36cc has a Sparcraft Ocean vang fitted. Recently it has become very noisy (squeaks badly when adjusted, or constant creaking noise if the boom is wobbling from side-to-side with no sails up). Have tried cleaning all the external fittings and pulleys with no success. I think the noise is coming from inside the strut. The vang is a spring-loaded type (not gas cylinder) and it feels like the internal spring is rubbing against the aluminium tubing.

Has hanyone taken one of these apart? I think it just requires some rivets to be drilled out, but I’m a bit wary of just doing that without knowing how the spring assembly is constructed (don’t want to end up with the pressurised spring launching itself into space).

Once apart, does it go back together without too much swearing and loss of limbs…?!

What maintenance can be done internally?

The vang has a name-plate saying ‘Sparcraft, Ref. 000 326, 150kg’

Thanks, David.

 

[dje67]

Or, even an exploded diagram would help

 

[Roberto]

Would you have a photograph of your vang? In the past there have been a few buying/merging among different companies Sparcraft Wichard Zspars Francespar Profurl etc, the same products have been sold under different denominations/codes often with very minor modifications during the years; some visual might help

 

[robmcg]

If you are UK based, drop Eurospars in Plymouth a quick email. They handle a lot of Sparcraft kit and could possibly help.

 

[dje67]

Did the job - quite easy. The vang is essentially made up of 2 sections. One is a larger aluminium tube with a pvc pipe insert containing a spring. The other section is an inner aluminium tube which also contains a spring. Rivets hold the end fittings onto each section. I had to drill out the 2 rivets holding the end fitting, pvc tube and outer aluminium tube together. Eventually I managed to extract the inner section from the outer section, but it was almost jammed solid with crud. Cleaned it all up and spray greased the springs and used dry lube on the interface between the inner section and the inside of the pvc tube. Reassembled the whole thing and fitted 2 new rivets.

With the vang extended there is no loading on the springs and no limbs were lost during job!

Thanks to those that replied and apologies for the late response.