Just finished my 9th winch cleaning/service at 6:30 this morning. Except for the two Lewmar 46 ST's at the cockpit, every winch was different. Some with 2 pawls, some with 4, some with 5 and some with 6. Single speeds, two speeds, ST 2 speeds, ST single speed, etc. Some with pawls on top, some with pawls on the main shaft. Hadn't thought about winches in many years, and reassembly often went down the wrong road, but we got 'em. I see the general theme, but those Lewmar engineers certainly come up with many, many creative ways to utilize gears and pawls. Talk about DIRTY. The cabintop 2 speeds were absolutely nasty. They all look new now, and click nicely. I need a new toothbrush. WAY too much (and maybe wrong kind of) grease in the new 16ST I bought from Defender ("display model"). I cleaned that one out and regreased all of them with a film, careful not to monkey up the pawls. FIVE different times pawl springs took off on a wander as I was assembling or disassembling. Two of those, if I hadn't noticed a ripple in the nearby diesel cleaning bucket, would have been lost. Next time I'll get new springs anyway.
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