Windless only goes down.

rasbury

First, where does the term windless come from or is that even right?

So, out on the water and was hanging on the lake doing some cleaning...windless has only been used a few times. The up and down switch was replaced after I got the boat. The anchor deployed fine when I stopped but when I got ready to leave-zip. It would still go down. I grabbed the wrench (which I have never used) to manually wind it and could not budge it either way. There must be some sort of a release? And some sort of a "switch" to reverse the motor to wind up?

Willhound

Sorry @rasbury I can't help mechanically. But grammatically it's "windlass".

rasbury

Ah...well that's have my question answered!

reneechris14

part number 19 is the bearing needs to be greased up but must be disassembled to get to. Delt with this a couple weeks ago on a buddy's 310. The heat from the motor must cook the gease out over time. Motor ran find for couple then trip the breaker.

rasbury

But the fact it will still go down...isn't it all on the same breaker/circuit?

Willhound

If the shaft is sticking it might still go down because of less friction as the weight of the anchor helps. But the opposite going up. Or it could be the switch or a solenoid as I believe there are two, one for up and one for down. Not 100% on that, maybe some of the technical guru's can chime in.

Ian

Does the relay click to drive it up, if not switch or connections. If relay triggers need to see if there is power at unit with button actuated. If so then it appears mechanical.

Having to dismantle to lube is a pain and a job for me for winter I think. 

rasbury

What, February? What do I do in between?😁

Cableguy Greg

Try and tighten the nut on the end of the gypsey. A friend of mine had the same issue and that fixed it. 

Ian

rasbury said:

What, February? What do I do in between?😁

Keep hauling the rode...

Hang on, you're in Florida - afternoon job  

rasbury

hey @Cableguy Greg
do you mean the nut that sticks out the side, where you would put the tool on to turn it manually? I put the tool on there and it would not budge up or down....guess I have to spend some time with it.....sigh, something else to learn from scratch!

rmfriday

I literally just had this problem on my 05 342 with the same horizon 600 windlass.
First off you will read that parts are no longer available and the replacement windlass that is recommended is $700.
I fixed mine for $22, same exact symptoms.
The easiest way is to remove it from the boat.
Turn the breaker off, remove the small access panel under the mirror at the front of the forward bed. Unbolt the 3 13mm nuts that mount the windlass, there are also a few wire straps that you will need to remove, once you have them removed you should have enough slack in the wire for it to reach through the round access hole. Cut the wires and be sure to lease enough slack so you can splice back together.  Now go to the top of the boat and secure the chain or rode to the cleat above the windlass, you will need to remove the anchor and now you can remove the chain/rode from the pulley and lift the windlass out.  

rasbury

so what was the fix @rmfriday ?

rmfriday

Okay now that the windlass is on a work bench remove both side covers. remove pin #13 in the above diagram, now remove gear #6. this will give you access to the 3 bolts that hold the motor in place, remove the bolts and slide the motor out of its mounting location. it is a tight fit with the motor leads and you will have to remove some 3M 5200 from the hole the leads are ran though.
Now that you have the motor out grab the small gear on the output shaft with a small pair of channellocks, also grab the end cap of the output shaft and turn counterclockwise. Once the end cap is removed you will be able to unscrew the gear.
Now take the two 10mm bolts off that hold the starter together and remove the starter nose cone, inside the nose cone is o one way thrush bearing that is you problem. Remove it by driving it out with a 19mm socket and replace with this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007D31QF0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
reassemble with some fresh grease and you should be good to go.
If you need any greater detail just let me know.
good luck!

Dream_Inn

@rmfriday - that is a great post that I'm sure people will come back to many times!  I'm sure it is something similar for all windlasses.  If it's not working, no reason to not dig in and try to fix before replacing the entire unit.

rasbury

Great post and thank you for the information. So how should the tool worked to manually raise and lower it? Is there a release or something? I'd bet this thing has not gone up and down 15 times in its life. When I got the boat, a tab in the back of the switch had been broken off somehow, someone pulling on wires or something I guess...previous owner may have never used it!

rmfriday

I only way to get my anchor up was to get the rode out of the pulley and manualy pulling it up by hand.

DanD2

icoultha said:

Does the relay click to drive it up, if not switch or connections. If relay triggers need to see if there is power at unit with button actuated. If so then it appears mechanical.

Having to dismantle to lube is a pain and a job for me for winter I think. 

@r@rasbury, what is the answer to the above question? You may be tearing windlass apart for nothing.

rasbury

Well first I'm going to start with the simple stuff as nothing should be worn out at this point in it's life....will check the switch and then to what I'm hearing are two selonoids in the rode locker....have not seen these before so hoping it's just a bad contact there or connections. Just finding the time... 

Dude_Himself

rasbury said:

Ah...well that's have my question answered!

Or 'half' for those of us north of the FL/GA line. ;-)

What's a bilut?

rasbury

An auto correction way bad

rasbury

Well, got back to the boat flipped the breaker on and off and the dang thing went up...

DanD2

rasbury said:

Well, got back to the boat flipped the breaker on and off and the dang thing went up...

Go figure!!!

PickleRick

If only the solutions to all life's problems could be simple as flipping a breaker.


Glad to hear you got it.  Every weekend I'm going over the windshield to drop/retrieve anchor by hand and imagine what life must be like for you guys and your buttons!!! 

Willhound

@rasbury happy to hear. Simple is best.
@PickleRick I have buttons but still head up and over to unhook/hook the safety lanyard I tie the anchor rode off with.
That windlass gear ever let's go I don't want an anchor and 50 feet of chain under the boat at speed. 

aero3113

PickleRick said:

If only the solutions to all life's problems could be simple as flipping a breaker.

I manage the maintenance for 2 Gulfstream Aircraft (G550 and a G650) both multi million dollar aircraft. You would be surprised how many times a simple breaker reset or a power down and restart fixes issues. 

GMSLITHO

yep the printing equipment goes wacky here sometimes  and just turn it off then re start and all fixed 

Lake_Bum

I work for the railroad, and shutting down, and resetting breakers, fixes quite a few buggy things on our big diesel locomotives as well.  
Glad it's working for ya Ras 

Willhound

While I'm happy it worked I'd still be a little suspect of either a loose connection or maybe a sticky switch. A breaker is usually either on or off. Would need to be on for even the down switch to work. So resetting just the breaker shouldn't have really changed anything except maybe all the switching off and on and playing with the windlass switch overcame a dirty contact or sticky switch?

rasbury

It has been used so seldom I'm going with a sticky something or another...same thing was going on my remote light...would only go up and dowñ... kept messing with it and it started working...just use it to spot Gators....

GMSLITHO

So ras where you boat you can’t swim