Pitted winch race. Any solutions?

[Bigjim]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Bearings and races are a matched pair, like a chain and sprockets.
They wear into each other.
However I bet your pitting is not wear, but corrosion. I can’t imagine actually wearing out the bearings on a winch, think of how many millions of rotation your cars wheel bearings do, and the load they are under compared to your winch.
I’d bet as long as you keep them clean and well lubed, they will well outlast you and the Boat.
Take mineral spirits, an air hose and a tooth brush and you can get them spotless in no time, just do not spin the bearings with the air hose, believe it or not but they can be spun fast enough to grenade and hurt you doing that.

As I mentioned, I buffed the bearings one at a time with a soft buffer wheel until I removed all the gunk on each needle. They are all clean and shiny now. No pits in the steel needles. The inside of the drum is pitted on the bottom bearing only. You can feel the pits with your finger tips and see them. I’ll post photos tomorrow when I’m back on the boat again.

[Cheechako]

Pictures would help, but pitting may not really be a problem. Clean and well lubed, the bearing still rides on a lot of good surface. The loads and the amount of turning in a winch are very low. How many turns per year? Maybe about what a car wheel experiences in 1/2 minute?
Heck, the pits may even hold grease that a perfect surface wont!

[Bigjim]

Pits may and certainly will hold grease, but grease will not provide distribution of load, force or effort. Pits will collect dirt or other gunk which could pile up and provide friction. That winch still turns with some difficulty. It’s not critical, but certainly not ideal.

The first goal is to get the rest of the gunk out of the bearings. I’ll pop it open tomorrow and take some photos

[a64pilot]

Soak the bearings in mineral spirits (paint thinner) it will eventually dissolve whatever is there. May take a day or so.

[jamhass]

A good machine shop can weld the area and remachine to original specs.

[hellosailor]

A machine shop that does "plasma deposition" or "plasma flame spraying" can definitely disappear the pits. Eutectic Castolin may be the originators, if not the Big Name, in the equipment for that. It may be worth calling them to ask if there's a local shop for you, that is their customer.

These guys routinely resurface pitted heavy equipment shafts, used in elevator lifts and huge printing presses, where the option is replacing a stainless steel roller that may be three feet long and eight inches thick, or resurfacing it. They do much smaller objects, too. Basically, the equipment is an oxyacetylene torch with a hopper full of "dust" that is added into the flame. the dust then becomes a metal plasma, which lands on the part and immediately binds to it at the molecular level.

When they are done adding metal (and they have dozens of alloys to match with) they machine the surface back down, and you have a new part in your hands. Which typically lasts as long as the original did.

Hit the right guy with an interesting "I've never done one of these before" project and sometimes the cost is nominal. Other times, it may be astronomical. But since there's no immediate crisis...it is worth asking around.

JBWeld might be all the filler you need, but the plasma stuff...incredible.

[Jim Cate]

Re the statement that the winch turns with "some difficulty": with clean bearings and no load, the pits will have zero effect on how the winch turns. If there is lots of drag, something else is wrong.

In your place, I'd clean and lube until there is no extra drag (compared to your other winches) and use it... and not spend big money on any attempts to remedy the pitting. I suspect that it is a non-problem.

Jim

[Bigjim]

The winch turns much better than before. I can tell you that the bearings have a huge impact on the smoothness of its operation.

Here are the photos I promised:













The last ones are close-ups of the pits.

I buffed out the winch shaft and even the internal drum surface. The drum surface after buffing is not smooth. Other than the pits, it has a noticeable roughness.

But after buffing the bearings, soaking and washing them in mineral spirits the winch works MUCH better than before.

Oddly, the winch turns very easily before I lock it down with the self-tailer. There may be some gunk at the top of the winch shaft that is still binding it up.

Here's the shaft with packed bearings:

[thinwater]

Wow. I've never seen a winch like that. I can't think of a solution that doesn't involve machining and a lot of parts. For a practical perspective, it's toast. I'd start watching E-bay.

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by redsky49

If it's already buggered, you can't bugger it worse.

WRONG

[RaymondR]

Ignore the pitting. The bearings on deck winches are very lightly loaded and since in service they rotate so slowly the pitting is not going to cause you problems. Clean everything up and reassemble the winches with plenty of grease in them and they should run trouble free for many years yet.

[Cheechako]

OK , thanks for the pictures. Wow, those are pretty badly corroded, but that area isn't where the bearing rides is it?. or is it? But maybe I'm just not seeing it right. the pitting looks like a tapered surface to me. I guess it is just the angle and that has to be the race with the spline right above it. .

Yes you have pitting but you also have lifting of the chrome it appears. So your winches must be chromed bronze.
One option I suppose is to remove the flaking chrome maybe just with a hard sharp edge.
If they were chromed in the beginning, which it appears, I would think a chrome shop could redo the chrome. Or do "electroless nickel" plating. But just with the flaking removed wbetter than that.ill be

What grease are you using? Too thick a grease causes resistance to turning. I went to using Lubriplate over the years rather than any "marine" greases.
You need to figure what you have wrong that the tailer is causing resistance.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

OK , thanks for the pictures. Wow, those are pretty badly corroded, but that area isn't where the bearing rides is it?. or is it? But maybe I'm just not seeing it right. the pitting looks like a tapered surface to me. I guess it is just the angle and that has to be the race.

Yes you have pitting but you also have lifting of the chrome it appears. So your winches must be chromed bronze.
One option I suppose is to remove the flaking chrome maybe just with a hard sharp edge.
If they were chromed in the beginning, which it appears, I would think a chrome shop could redo the chrome. Or do "electroless nickel" plating. But just with the flaking removed wbetter than that.ill be

What grease are you using? Too thick a grease causes resistance to turning. I went to using Lubriplate over the years rather than any "marine" greases.
You need to figure what you have wrong that the tailer is causing resistance.

You're right, it is probably the taper.


I suspect the reason the tailer is causing trouble is that it places a different bind on the bearings. Either the bearings are bad when they feel an offset load, or perhaps there is a thrust washer/spacer issue. Perhaps something rubs due to bearing wear. A slight change in spacers might help.

[Bigjim]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

OK , thanks for the pictures. Wow, those are pretty badly corroded, but that area isn't where the bearing rides is it?. or is it? But maybe I'm just not seeing it right. the pitting looks like a tapered surface to me. I guess it is just the angle and that has to be the race with the spline right above it. .

Yes you have pitting but you also have lifting of the chrome it appears. So your winches must be chromed bronze.
One option I suppose is to remove the flaking chrome maybe just with a hard sharp edge.
If they were chromed in the beginning, which it appears, I would think a chrome shop could redo the chrome. Or do "electroless nickel" plating. But just with the flaking removed wbetter than that.ill be

What grease are you using? Too thick a grease causes resistance to turning. I went to using Lubriplate over the years rather than any "marine" greases.
You need to figure what you have wrong that the tailer is causing resistance.

As far as i can tell, there is no taper to the shaft. The top and bottom bearings are interchangeable. So, that rules out a taper in my book.

Yes, the pitting is exactly where the lower bearing rides. The bottom bearing was completely encased in dirt and old grease for several years, at least. The design of the winch does not allow dirt to flush out, so it collects, expecting the owner to service the winch and clean it out regularly. Both main winches had pitting. But the starboard winch was the worst.

[RaymondR]

To me that looks more like blistering of chrome plating than actual pitting and in that case is purely a visual impact in a place which is hidden when the winch is assembled and plays no part in the winches operation.