I've been trying to find a motor rewinding
service, but haven't mastered the French term for that (yet). Someday, I might learn the local lingo, but right now it is more likely to come out as "no entiendo" rather than "je ne comprends pas".
I have disconnected the "safety" relay that forces the
engine to be on to use the windlass because I had an intermittent fault with the relay that drove it. It was easier to just jump the relay with a wire than try to solve the root problem.
According to the wisdom of the forum, things to do from least amount of swearing to most:
Family-friendly:
With the engine running (right?):
- check voltage at breaker
- check voltage at solenoid
- check voltage at motor
I'm supposed to have less than 5% drop in total? So if I measure 13V at breaker, I should see 12.35V at motor. According to a wire calculator, it says for a 12m run of 00 AWG (9.3mm diameter, 70mm2 area) that I will see almost 5% of a drop (12.39V). I'm pretty sure that is my wire size, but I'll double check.
- measure
current going to windlass. I'll have to see if I can find a 100A+ meter...
- free
wheel the windlass with no load to "free things up"
- clean all connections carrying loads so they're nice and shiny, protect with the correct magic fluid/grease
Minor gods invoked:
- figure out where the lubrication system/inlet is and what kind of grease/oil it might benefit from
- hopefully limited disassembly...
- see if it runs better/worse after messing with it
Four-letter words released at volume:
- figure out how to remove just the motor from a small enclosure with limited access to the tools I'll need
- remove what I can from the motor (hopefully remembering where it all goes) and check the spinny bits and if they are appropriately shiny (or not). If not, make them shiny.
- clean the motor (air? mineral spirits? the alcohol I should be drinking by now?)
- take it in to be rebuilt (because at this point, why wouldn't you?)
- reassemble what you can, add excess
parts to the plastic bin for those things
Thanks for your input on this. I've got a plan now and I didn't have one before.