Meissner Winch Service (18ST)

[steveth3b]

Hi all, found some general stuff on winch servicing posted over the years, but Meissner servicing hasn't really been easy to find, so I thought I would post my adventure. I understand that the company has been sold several times, so the information now appears to be scarce. Today was servicing two 18STs. One was in depth (requiring pulling the headliner and re-bedding the winch after removing it) in order to access the ratcheting gears at the bottom that let the winch handle freewheel (sorry for the bicycle terminology, feel free to correct me), the other was just replacing the pawl springs that let the drum ratchet.

1) Use block of wood and mallet on the feeder arm counter clockwise and remove the feeder arm and plastic bearing.

2) Remove the four 4mm allen screws from the upper crown.

3) Remove the drum and bottom plastic bearing. You can rotate the drum clockwise to compress the pawls and make removal easier.

4) Slide the pawls up to remove, using caution to keep the pawl springs from shooting off (this is more important if you don't have spares).

At this point, you can clean everything, grease the gears and use a light machine oil on your pawls, and reassemble. The ratcheting gears at the bottom require much more work, so be sure you can re-bed your winches if you proceed from here. Note that stopping here still allows your drum to ratchet.

5) Remove the 5 screws to remove the center stem assembly. You will probably need someone on the back side with a 10mm wrench to complete this process. Pry the assembly up.

6) Remove the 10mm bolt and washer to access to ratcheting gears. Use a winch handle at the other end for leverage.

7) Remove the main spindle, remove and clean or replace the pawls and replace the pawl springs. Remove and clean the large central gear. Note that the flat side goes toward the bottom, and the metal bearing sits on top of the raised side.

8) Lubricate and replace everything in the opposite order. I took the time to place parts in order removed, so it was fairly easy to replace everything, minus getting the nuts back on the bolts in their recessed space holding the winch to the deck. Make sure you properly bed it.

That's the process. I've included a link to some pictures to help out.

Oh right! When reassembling the drum, you can spin the drum a little to compress the pawls and pull up a little to line up the feeder arm. Too much movement up however, will allow them to lock out and you'll have to reset them to be able to drop the drum again. Patience helps. Good luck out there.

[JPA Cate]

Nice post.

There's another thread about this, here, https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...hes-13458.html, but this one is a simple, clear set of instructions. The linked thread is about discovering how to do it.

Ann

[steveth3b]

Yeah, that linked post was a little helpful (gave me the confidence to use a wooden block and mallet), and is why I'm posting here. Today I disassembled and serviced the 23ST-41s and 21ST-32. They were much more straight forward. I even had the 8 & 10 year old crew helping out. As GordMay mentioned in the linked post,

Originally Posted by GordMay

Servicing Meissner Winches
Disassembly:
Use the Holmatro top-cap key to remove the top cap for inspection and servicing your winch.
...
4. Re-place the drum, and use the Holmatro key to hand tighten the top cap.

a top-cap key is useful for getting the cap off, but I imagine you can fabricate your own if you get creative. The 3/16" holes are 2 1/4" apart on center. See the

Google shared album

created for pictures. Note that while similar in design to other brands, there are no drum bearings to have to replace or inspect.

1) Use tool to remove cap and plastic bearing.

2) Lift drum and feeder arm off.

3) Remove bottom plastic bearing & use something like a small screwdriver or allen wrench to lift out the gear spindles. Mine were caked in old grease and took a little persuasion to come out, so I used my smallest allen wrench inserted into the small metal tube inserted perpendicular to the spindle to move it on the Y axis, while using slight pressure from the screwdriver under that to move it on the X axis. Both spindles (only on the 23ST-41s) on the larger gears touching the drum had a slight bend to them which probably exacerbated extraction, but having no replacements, I cleaned them and was able to get them in and back out easily enough with a fine layer of grease on them. Annual inspections going forward should help keep them a little looser. I will probably find someone to machine replacements.

4) Remove the gear assemblies. The two ~2" gears have a smaller opening in the base (center stem). The flat gear with 24T is on top, 18T on the bottom. Honestly, just pay attention to it when you disassemble and you should be able to get it right on reassembly. The opposite assembly has the 29T gear on the bottom (roughly 3"), and a 16T on top. Note: this assembly is a little more stubborn when putting the gear spindles back in (in all three winches serviced) because of the plastic bearing on the bottom you have to have centered. I found my small screwdriver to be useful again in helping get it right to get the spindle through.

5) Remove main spindle.

6) Remove pawls and pawl springs.

7) Clean and lubricate everything.

8) Reassemble in opposite order. I found it slightly helpful to get the larger gear assembly in first, as the bearing in the more evenly matched gears was much easier to work with, and this gives you access to the backside of the tricky bearing if you need to nudge it back out.

I like this design, more than the 18ST, as you can clean and have access to all of your components without having to remove the whole winch. I hope this helps anyone with these still installed. 3rd party pawl springs work, and even in 2024, (boat was built in 1991, and I doubt the pawls have been replaced, maybe not even the springs) the pawls are holding up well. See the pictures if you get stuck. My gear assemblies are laid out right to left, spindle, bottom, top, all in correct install orientation. On the larger gear, the side that goes up closely fits the flange on the gear above it. The side facing down has a slightly larger radius, and is shallower.