Boom end sheaves replacement

I have an E32-3 and this year one of the reefing line sheaves in the boom end shattered and fell out. It was the first reef line so to finish out the season I switched reefing lines so that I could still use the first reef. But the sheaves both need to be replaced. Because I live over and hour and a half from the boat I decided to ask the rigging department in my marina to give me an estimate on doing the work for what I figure would be a fairly straightforward job. But they said that they couldn't give me an estimate because they didn't know how hard it would be to take the boom end off or where they could find the sheaves. (Really?!). They want to do the work via time and materials. In other words an open ended price. I told them that I'd need at least a cost range. I also have a another rigging shop (it's all they do) line up to look at the work.

It seems to me that getting the boom end off shouldn't be that hard but I've never done it. Has anyone? Then there is a pin/shaft that runs through the boom end casting that I've think could be removed with the use of a drift pin. I'm sure then there are sources to locate and purchase the proper sheaves. Sounds simple to me but maybe I'm being naïve since I've never done it before. Thoughts and/or experiences please. Thanks!

Boom End Sheaves

Hi Bob
If there is a devil in the details here I hope somebody other than me catches it :<{)))
We added our own sheaves to the boom years ago to roller reef. We bought the boat without roller reefing. Our boat has two bolts one on each side of the boom that when removed allow the end of the boom to be taken off. There was a ss little piece of smooth rod that was the sheave axle that we tapped out. Ordered three sheaves making sure they were acetal (good sun resistance) and we were done to the best of my memory (1982.) We have one reef in almost all summer so we do not need to roller reef much. In fact our sheaves have been frozen on the rod all last season and you reminded me to take the boom apart and relieve the hole in the sheave a little.
Best Regards Pat 1981 E28+ Universal 5411

Ah, estimates. I had one last week--$1300 to wax my boat. I paid $375 last time.

As Pat said, the boom end should come off easily. If a Kenyon boom, the sheaves casting is aluminum, probably held on by just three screws or rivets.

Once off, you can bring it home and pull out the old sheaves, measure, and order replacements. They're not expensive.

The casting itself is hard to find, so if yours is all right everything's good.

You know, anytime I work or fix something mechanical, either on board, around the house or on my Jeep, I try to get as much info as possible because...basically I sometimes doubt my abilities. Why that is I don’t know and that’s a topic for a different forum I guess. The more I research this sheave thing the easier it looks to me. I even found a source for boom parts at Rig-Right or Rig-Rite. Looks like the pin just taps out but my concern was getting the boom en off because theyard made such a big deal about it. I even found some info about it on another sailing site and the owner tapped the pin out without taking to boom end off. But I think for the sake of a cleaner job I’m going to pull mine off the end. That’s what I love about this site! When in doubt you can always find someone who’s done it and says basically, “Is no big deal!” Thanks guys I’ll report again after it’s done so my info might help someone else.

Bolo said:

You know, anytime I work or fix something mechanical, either on board, around the house or on my Jeep, I try to get as much info as possible because...basically I sometimes doubt my abilities. Why that is I don’t know and that’s a topic for a different forum I guess.

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Not knowing anything about you, this is the dunning-kruger effect cognitive bias. Essentially the more you know, the less confident you're likely to be. Knowledgeable people are aware of just how much it is that they don't know, and the reverse is true.

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, yet wiser people so full of doubts.”- Bertrand Russell

Bolo said:

..find someone who’s done it and says basically, “Is no big deal!”

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"its no big deal. Go for it"

(I had both boom ends off earlier this year...)

Speaking of sources of sheaves, this guy gets constant praise.
http://www.zephyrwerks.com

edit: an added thought: while going with a small vendor may seem, at first blush, potentially expensive, it's worth remembering that that large national companies are diverting a major % of our purchase $$ into high overhead - everything from executive salaries to advertising to perks.
While that's not a bad thing per se, it does leave quite a bit of room for a hard-working smaller company - sometimes only one or two people - to sell a quality product for less $ and provide a higher level of personal service.

My boom ends came off fairly easily. Be gentle when driving or pressing the pin out because the casting is brittle aluminum and could be easily cracked. I‎t is just a rolled steel pin, though, so you can persuade I‎t out.

I bought sheaves from Rig Rite and found them to be massively overpriced and obnoxious to boot. Just try West Marine, Defender or Fisheries Supply. If not then Zephyr Works.

Boom Sheaves

Hi Bob
Those Zephyr sheave products look really neat. Thanks for bringing this all up. Acetal with a bearing! Wow... sounds to be maybe expensive but right acetal material. I would think that the black would hold up better than the white that we have on Chips. That bearing should make it easy to spin. I know where to look if ours break in year 37. Best Regards Pat 1981 E28+ Universal 5411.
BTW: Probably good advice by Keith on Rig Rite. We are still waiting for a couple of call returns from a few years ago.

Yeah, Rig-Rite: the official forum Supplier of Last Resort.

I would avoid Rig-Rite if at all possible as well. They are overpriced, arrogant, and lied about the delivery date by almost 4 months! The delivery promised in May was not until August! and failed to finish the work on the gooseneck I ordered, so I had to take it to a local machine shop to be finished! Great service......not!

I got replacement masthead sheaves from Zephyr, and it was a good experience. He told me exactly what to measure in order to ensure that the new sheaves were sized for the halyards, would fit correctly in the masthead sheave-box, he told me how to tell if the box itself (or the pin) wasn't square, etc.

After emailing him the measurements, I got the new sheaves on a pretty quick turnaround, for a pretty reasonable price. and they are very high quality.

Highly recommend.

Bruce

Just do what most pros do

Order them from Zepherwerks.

Guy

See the eventual fix here:

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...om-end-sheaves-replacement-The-Fix-on-a-E32-3

A few points based on my own experience:

1. Don't even try to get the axle out without removing the end piece and setting somewhere you can conveniently get at it.
2. Removing the end piece involved pretty standard amount of pain: stainless screws in the aluminum were frozen as expected. Grab your trusty PB Blaster and impact driver. Do not be in a hurry. Blast it with, well, PB Blaster, wait a few hours (or a few days), apply impact driver. The screws will probably move a quarter turn and get stuck again. Rinse and repeat.
3. The sheaves/axle proved to be impossible to remove. Methods tried: PB Blaster, soaking in Coca-cola, soaking in vinegar, boiling in water, heating with propane torch, freezing in the freezer, hammering with small sledgehammer and punch on a block of wood. The only thing I did not try was pressing it out. Kept at it for two weeks straight with zero results. That is unless you count extreme frustration as a result.
4. Rig-Rite solution is expensive. Well, more like highway robbery expensive. But so is a month (total time spent on this project) out of a sailing season. Wish I knew that before spending all that time trying to reuse the old piece. Be content that the boatyard would have gone Rig-Rite route, marked up the hardware and added labor on top.

It's a good point that once stainless/aluminum corrosion welding has occurred, no trick will work.

However, the only way to know is to try.

This particular issue is central to our attempts to fix or refurb old gear. There's no pattern to the welding, one pin may be stuck and a sister bolt come out easily.

The issue is compounded by the difficulty of drilling stainless out of aluminum. In the usual course of applying every known means, something often breaks off in there, and it's usually hardened steel--a bit, a tap, a punch. Makes matters worse.

Can a damaged aluminum casting be welded? Again, can't know till you try. If the piece is corroded to the molecular level, as old salt water aluminum often is, it is unweldable. But maybe not.

I've been through a lot of this stuff in the last couple of years, including yesterday, and there is usually a solution short of Rig-Rite.

The solution process has to be looked upon as slow-unfolding. It is good to wait, ponder, and listen to other opinions. It is useful to expect failure of one or many attempts, and to fail with good cheer. It is not unusual for some small/big issue to take all summer to sort out, or to go through three repairs until one finally works.

People can give you advice ("be very careful not to break off a drill bit or tap in the hole because now you have two pieces of steel to extract"). But even if you know that, and are very careful, it may break off anyhow. That was me, yesterday. It's just the nature of these things.

The picture that swims to mind whilst mired in failure and covered in grease is often that of the smiling expert marine craftsman/mechanic with 40 years experience you could've hired.

Ha. He will not be smiling long. He'll have all the problems you have, at $125 an hour. And his estimate will have been low, and he knows you're not going to be happy either.

The only way for us to enjoy these jobs is to dig in and put in the time and the sweat. And to expect it to take a long time, to buy new tools, and learn something whether we want to or not.

Sure, sometimes I turn a simple job like a new halyard over to an expert. We need to sail and they need to eat.

The bill is always a good reminder of why we work on our own boats:

Christian Williams said:

... stainless/aluminum corrosion welding has occurred, no trick will work.

..."be very careful not to break off a drill bit or tap in the hole because now you have two pieces of steel to extract

...$125 an hour. And his estimate will have been low,

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Man, does *that* bring back memories of an ill-spent youth.

Way Back When, I ran an independent rigging service out of the back of my car. Mostly word-of-mouth business around the local racing crowd. At one point I got a call from the owner of a relatively well-known local racing boat, wanting me to "remove and replace" a winch that was mounted on an aluminum pad welded to the side of his mast. Wasn't the most exciting job I'd ever gotten, but it seemed simple, I needed the business and a good reference from this owner would go a long way, so I took the job. I estimated it would take an hour, I tripled it to be safe, rounded up to the nearest 10 and agreed to do the job for a hundred bucks. Hey, that was a lot of money to me back then.

It was also before I learned about the magic of a time-and-materials estimate.

It took about 30 seconds to get the drum off the winch, and then another thirty to ascertain that the six bolts holding the winch base to the aluminum pad were completely corroded in place. Tried a big screwdriver with a wrench for leverage. Tried a screwdriver blade in a socket driver with a breaker-bar. Tried an impact driver. Tried soaking them in every nasty "break free" concoction known to mankind. Tried heat. Tried dry ice. Tried vibration. Finally ended up grinding off the heads, drilling out the bodies and picking the remains of the stainless threads out of the tapped aluminum holes with a tweezers. Spent *way* more than a hundred bucks on tools and supplies. Not counting nearly three days of labor.

But I got 'em out. Without damaging the threads in the aluminum pad.

And I got the referral. Led to a lot of new business. He probably said something like "hey, you should hire this idiot, he does a decent job and he practically works for free"

It'll all come out in therapy some day...