Winch servicing - how long per winch, and which tools? Tips welcome...

gregcope said:
When did different greases (synthetic) become popular for winches. I might be using some very old grease.
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Mine are nearly 30 years old, and were heavily caked with old, hardened grease when I serviced them. However, I suspect it's more a case of people not realising that the grease in a winch is important, and just using whatever they have to hand. I certainly didn't know it was important until I serviced my winches and realised how stiff the old grease had made them!
 
I did my 4 Harkens in about an hour the other weekend. I will confess to only having taken the drums off, cleaned the accessible old grease with various scrapers and brushes, re-greased and oiled (with the correct stuff) the visible pawls in the 2 single speed winches (and changed a broken pawl spring). Only tool needed was a screwdriver.

They are all a huge amount better than they were before, but a full strip down can wait until next summer. IMHO that's a job for a lazy sunny evening with a beer in my hand. But I'll agree, it's amazing how stiff they were with the old grease still in place.
 
Time taken depends upon the make of the winch, my last boat had Lewmar 7 single speed and Lewmar 16 two speed winches, which were easy to service, about 30 mins per winch, at least once during the season and then at the end of the season.
New boat has a couple of Gibb AR winches which I’m still trying to disassemble, time so far at least 3 hours and still haven’t managed to strip them completely.
Winches are not cheap, get a lot of hard work and it seems sensible to keep them serviced.
 
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