How to Service Winches

Winch cleaning is preventative maintenance work needs to get done, particularly considering that you probably have a lot of money invested in your boat’s winches. For perspective, the chances are that the value of your compliment of winches on 30 to 40-foot boat equals the cost of your engine. Protect that investment with annual cleaning and lubricating and your winches will continue to reward you with reliable performance season after season. The work isn’t hard, and some find it therapeutic. If you do this job once a year, all you need is some old T-shirts to wipe all the parts clean. If the old grease has hardened from years of neglect, the gunk can be loosened by spraying it with WD40 or by soaking parts in fresh diesel fuel. If you do use a solvent, make sure to wipe it all off your cleaned parts before re-greasing making sure to clean each tooth on every gear. Don’t worry about not being able to remember how to put the parts back together, take solace in the fact that most winches come in pairs – port and starboard. As long as you don’t take both apart at the same time, you can always use the other winch as a guide. Pro tip: when disassembling the winch, have a clean, clear surface on which you can place each piece your remove in the sequence right to left as you remove it. Then, to reassemble the cleaned parts, simply go put them back in using the reverse order.