Wayne, you're exactly right.

I pulled the windlass today and indeed, one of the needle bearings is totally
shot (effectively a ratchet), another is rather rough. There was no moisture
inside but there is a fair amount of surface rust on the gears and the outside
of the case had corrosion.

Unfortunately, the warranty is 3 years and I'm over 5, so I'll be pricing out
replacement bearings (I'd have a machine shop do the work) and a new gearbox.
Maybe this is better than a shot motor - we'll see.



"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 31 May 2004 10:02:51 -0400, "Jeff Morris"
wrote:
After 5 years my windlass has suddenly developed a nasty problem. It is a
Simpson Lawrence Sprint 1000 that I use with a Delta 35, 50 feet of 5/16
chain
spliced to 9/16 NE 3-strand. While it seems to function in UP mode, when I
put
it in DOWN it grinds, squeals, and stalls within a half revolution. I was
hoping it was a washer stuck under the gypsy, but I pulled that apart and the
same symptoms exist with just the shaft sticking up.
===============================================

The problem is almost certainly with the reversing clutch in the gear
case. I had a similar problem with my SL 1500 but fortunately caught
it with a month left on the warranty. The problem with mine was due
to a faulty seal between the main shaft and the gear case which
allowed water into the gears, causing corrosion of the bearings. The
gear case internals are engineered like a swiss watch and there isn't
much that can be done on your own. Since mine was still under
warranty SL ended up replacing the entire unit rather than attempt a
repair. I was happy with SL's warranty service but not with the
durability of the product.