Oil in Lofrans Tigres windlass motor

[nmccubbin]

After the issues mentioned in my post a year or so, I bought a new motor from Lofrans, and lugged it with me to Hiva Oa in French Polynesia.
Motor performance has been deteriorating since installation in December. today it quit at Tauna in the Gambiers .
We opened the motor up and found at least a quarter litre of oil in it, VERY well distributed.
We cleaned it up with diesel, and are letting it dry out overnight before reassembly and test
The commutator is badly pitted, presumably because of the oil. We sanded it fairly clean with 220 grit.

Any advice on what to do before reassembly?

One design weakness is that if the oil in the gearcase leaks, it goes to the motor. We cut grooves in the adapter plate between the motor and gearcase so that oil passing the seal will drip on deck instead of into the motor.
Plan to drill a drain in the bottom of the motor casing too
Comments please on our modifications

We cannot find a way to be sure the correct amount of oil is in the gearbox. The sight glass is too dirty, and a dipstick does not work. We probably had too much oil in it.
Any solutions ??

[RaymondR]

I found that oil on the brushes seriously accelerated their wear.

[GordMay]

Evidently*, the Tigres gearbox takes 0.5 liter/17oz of SAE90-140 oil.
* ➥ https://www.lofrans.com/faq
or ➥ https://www.seatechmarineproducts.co...city_Guide.pdf

See also: “Servicing your electric anchor windlass”
➥ https://oceannavigator.com/servicing...chor-windlass/

[SailingHarmonie]

I think you might be significantly overfilling your gearbox.

The correct oil level is half way up the sightglass. More is NOT better! A worm gear drive like this is lubricated by splash, not immersion.

If your estimate of the amount of oil in the motor is correct, that’s half the normal amount of oil in the gearbox. There is no way that much oil could be transferred into the motor unless there was far too much to start with.

This is not a design problem with these units, modifying it as you describe is nearly burying the symptom of a problem, not fixing it. In any event, be sure to renew the o-ring seal on the motor shaft, and be sure the shaft is not damaged where the o-ring touches.

[nmccubbin]

Of course we have overfilled the gearbox.
Problem is that the sight glass became opaque after a few years If Lofrans had a drain we would have had a messy deck instead of a damaged motor
Better still, a practical way of checking the oil level, such as a dipstick or a removable plug as virtually all car differentials have
Do you know how to remove the sight glass?

[RaymondR]

The problem I had was caused by water leaking down the vertical shaft past the seal and raising the level of the lubricating oil until it started to drain into the motor past the motor shaft seal. I drilled a small hole in the motor case at it's lowest point to keep the oil from filling the motor case.

[Jammer]

The sight glass is a friction fit with an o-ring seal. You can just pry it out and replace it with a new one. You may possibly be able to pry it out and clean it (with some solvent and a pipe cleaner or q-tip), especially if you can get a new o-ring locally.



If you put a small, bright penlight inside the fill opening, you may find that you can backlight the sightglass and see the oil level even if the window is dirty. Or shine a bright penlight on one half of the sightglass and view through the other half.