To grease or not to grease (Plastimo halyard swivel )

winsbury

winsbury

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The halyard swivel on my 608S was noisy and reluctant to turn so decided to give it a good rinse under the tap... no difference...so next I took the top off to find a mucky greasy ball cage bearing gummed up with many years of grit etc. Some 3-in-1 heavy duty degreasant and lots of rags later and its now turning as smooth as a new one but I wonder if the grease is required or not or even if it was original or put there by a well meaning previous owner.

The Plastimo instructions give no clue as to maintenance of this part other than to rinse it but I'm unused to seeing any ball cage bearing that doesnt need grease so it feels wrong to leaving it dry. Any ideas anyone ?
 
winsbury said:
The halyard swivel on my 608S was noisy and reluctant to turn so decided to give it a good rinse under the tap... no difference...so next I took the top off to find a mucky greasy ball cage bearing gummed up with many years of grit etc. Some 3-in-1 heavy duty degreasant and lots of rags later and its now turning as smooth as a new one but I wonder if the grease is required or not or even if it was original or put there by a well meaning previous owner.

The Plastimo instructions give no clue as to maintenance of this part other than to rinse it but I'm unused to seeing any ball cage bearing that doesnt need grease so it feels wrong to leaving it dry. Any ideas anyone ?
Click to expand...

The ball bearings on a 608 are only mild steel so you need something to prevent them rusting. On a previous boat this happened and I had to replace them.
 
tyce said:
Vaseline works well for me. Also works on the furling gear as well!!
Click to expand...

Okay so concensus seems to be that some kind of anti-corrosion/lube treatment for the balls is a necessity. Shame it doesnt say so in the instructions.
 
I have just experienced the same problem. It was working perfectly last year but this year I kept getting halyard wraps. I thought it was because of a problem with the sails that had been serviced so I called the sailmaker on this. His rigger advised that the Plastimos are well known for these problems and suggested I save myself the cost of calling him out by first trying to clear out the gunk in the bearings on the halyard swivel.

His advice was.
1. Rinse it with fairy liquid and lots of water
2. Then rinse it with lots more water, (my experience is that lots is not enough, "lots and lots" is almost enough)
3. Then spray with Silicone Lubricant. He suggested Maclube is probably too expensive and suggested any Silicone Lubricant will do available at most decent hardwares. (He warned not to use WD40 as it is a great cleaning material and will remove vital protection that coates the bearings)

The top bearing on my halyard swivel was still turning well, but the bottom one was seized solid. It also looked to me like it was rust, but since the rigger suggested it was just gunk, I set about and repeated the above three steps about 100 times. I also tapped the bearing lightly on the side with a small hammer to help release any unk stuck inside. Eventually I got a small amount of movement and continued until I got it running freely.

The bottom O-ring kept falling out so I just snapped it off as I thought it could have been the cause of the swivel seizing up occasionally. I would need to disconnect the forestay to fit a new one so I might fit a new o-ring on my next service.

After finishing the job, I was also wondering whether I need to apply a grease so seaarched the web to find this thread.

It would seem to me if Plastimo manual suggests to simply rinse with water, then no grease is needed. Since the bearings do not turn constantly like wheelbearings, the chances of the bearings overheating is slim. They just need to be kept clean and free of dust and gunk.
 
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