What is the best strategy for rejuvenating my mainsheet cars?

[Chotu]

Rigger is telling me no intermediates can be problematic because sail can catch wind raising and lowering making things more difficult. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a check on trying things differently before! Ha ha. So I guess if I try this or not will have to do with if I can get the intermediates working properly or not.

If not…. I’m going to try going without at least temporarily

[AKA-None]

If the intermediate don’t slide well you will have a harder time raising and dropping your sail
At least that’s what I noticed on my little boat and I suspect even more so than your larger mast and sail

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

If the intermediate don’t slide well you will have a harder time raising and dropping your sail
At least that’s what I noticed on my little boat and I suspect even more so than your larger mast and sail

And what did you do to counteract that problem?

[Chotu]

So the bearings are all 1/4” or .635mm

Some are smaller beca they are worn down. Some are not round anymore.

The ones I left on the track overnight are sticking a little today. Lots of sand blowing out there. 26 knot winds for days on end. May be the cause? They were working great.

I have the OneDrop on order. Takes a long time for things to arrive out here.

Back to sanding shave boxes I guess

[Chotu]

The cars from the pic in this thread are working differently too.

The larger batten car is working perfectly still. Yet the same batten car type that is out on the mast is sticky again. Just being out in the blowing sand for about 24 hours.

The smaller intermediate car from the picture seems to work a little better with one less ball bearing on each side. Not sure how many to put. May need to google that

Edit: I have 2 too many in each car. Trying again with less bearings

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Rigger is telling me no intermediates can be problematic because sail can catch wind raising and lowering making things more difficult. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a check on trying things differently before! Ha ha. So I guess if I try this or not will have to do with if I can get the intermediates working properly or not.

If not…. I’m going to try going without at least temporarily

It depends on how much luff you have between battens. On our mainsail the lower four battens are 3-4m apart and they have one intermediate each - that would be a lot of loose luff when hoisting, lowering, or reefed. There is no reason for intermediate cars to be twisted by the sail as they’re attached by webbing.

I see you figured out that maybe you had too many bearings. There should be a gap 1-2 bearings wide in the bearing race to give them room.

Finally, regarding ball bearing cars vs ball bearing and slides and just slides, FWIW we changed from Harken System B ball bearing cars to Ronstan System 30 captive ball cars. The Ronstan cars have got Torlon ball bearings around the sides and Acetal sliderods under the track. They have a LOT more friction than the Harken cars they replaced. The mainsail still falls on its own, but it’s much harder pulling it up. Or, I’m getting older, sigh. Note that the Harken System B track and cars were much too small for our main (curse you Outremer for specifying that track system), and the System C was twice as much as the Ronstan Series 30, which is correctly sized for our main.

[Chotu]

So I have analyzed all of this completely now.

First, the bearings and track and everything are extremely sensitive to sand. Within 24 hours of blowing winds out here in a sandy environment they don’t work well again.

The batten cars work pretty well. But the intermediates really don’t. They tend to drag rather than roll even without sand in them.

There’s really not much I can do here. Just replace the bearings and hope for the best and clean them out once I get away from all of the blowing sand out here.

And I’m not putting on any lube until I get away from the sand either. That doesn’t make sense all it will do is make the sand stick to the bearings.


So my plan is to just wash these out when we need to raise or lower the main cell and then really wash them out and lube them once I’m away from this area

[Franziska]

Be careful, salt crystals can also be bad...

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Be careful, salt crystals can also be bad...

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

Ha! What isn’t bad for these? It’s a surprisingly vulnerable and terrible system. Seems like some small wheels would work better.

[George_SD]

I've spent a lot of time working on a sticky boom-car and have gathered some knowledge. Here are the things that did the trick in the order of most effective to least effective

1 - ensure that the tension on the car is applied in the center and perpendicular to channel it's running on. If it tilts to one side - this will create problems. Mostly happens at extremes, rarely if ever in the middle. Some cars have sheaves or d-rings off-center, this causes them to not be parallel to the track and bind as a result. Often a low cost and simple fix.

2 - replace tolron bearings. Even though they are tough, they still wear out and chip.

3 - clean the track and make sure it's just super clean. It almost never needs lube

4 - if you need it to be a bit better in a pinch - you can lube it with McLube OneDrop (recommended by Harken and works well). You need very little, just like the name suggests. Once you have time - fixt he core issue and clean the track.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by Chotu

And what did you do to counteract that problem?

I’m my particular case I had to clean everything and make certain all the parts were in spec

Sounds like you need to determine what the slides should be rather than what you currently are seeing

Put it back together as if new not futz with what parts are currently there trying to force it to work with basically random parts

Assuming I’m reading your predicament correctly

[Chotu]

Perfect. Thanks for the tips. I will replace the Torlon bearings and just keep it really clean to start. I do have some “one drop” on the way just in case.