Care Of Winch Cables

[Friendly Black Dog]

Folks,

Just wanting to find out what sort of cleaning process people are using for winch cables? Following the manufactures procedures all you would do is run the full length of cable through a soapy water bath and then back through a drying rag. There is no specific cleaning process for specific op's for example winching in dusty area's vs salt water op's?

Interested to hear peoples different thoughts.

Cheers

FBD

[Curious2]

Where I work the cable is taken out to its full length in a container of fresh water. It is then recovered through two sets of rags held by someone as the cable comes out of the container. One set dries the cable and the other set is soaked in WD-40 equivalent.

[[email protected]]

Similar to Curious 2 but our cables are run out to full length using 3 people and a couple of pulleys - rinsed with water on the way out and PX'd (WD40 equiv) on the way back in.

[Bucaneer Bill]

new rescue hoist cable wash kit

http://www.zephyrintl.com/groundsupportequip.htm

[TeeS]

Hi Crab

I reckon that job could be done by 2 people and 1 pulley in the civvy world!

Cheers

TeeS

[TwinHueyMan]

The Zephyr is the heat. Cleans, oils, inspects, and re-seats (aka tensions) the cable all at once with only one guy required. Before we got one of those, we would reel out the whole length of the cable and reel in with a nicely oiled rag. This was done every 30 days along with a visual inspection, or every time after use in a dusty or saltwater environment. We had pretty good cable lives. The Zephyr had us replace a few of our cables on the first run through after finding internal strand breaks that we would have never been able to detect visually. Reseating frequently with the Zeph had no more birdcaging. Ever.

I also used to reel in with an oiled rag in my guide hand during the final hoist iteration of the day during training, usually bringing the crewmember in and therin cleaning and oiling the length of cable that was used for the day. Full cable re-seats with a weight always had an oily rag in the hand. This would keep the cable oiled usually every week, very clean, and always wound back up properly tensioned and seated. We found it better for the cable to ensure it was stored tensioned, rather than stored with a fresh oiling (we had more birdcages than corrosion problems). The Zephyr fixes all this with a wash included and was downright stupid not to do after every day of hoisting, it was so easy.

-Mike

[Friendly Black Dog]

Thanks for the replies especially the one with the link to the Zephyr.

• So a full cable extension it is with a weight attached.
  
• Most if not all speak of using an oily rag or WD soaked rag for final TLC. Is there any manufacturer authorised product for this application or are we all using "best practise" (for want of a better term) procedures off our own bats?
  
• Using some form of lubricant, particularly something with anti-corrosive properties seems logical to me, but how do the manufacurers view this from a warranty/liability point of view?

Hey twin man what sort of oil is applied in the Zephyr?

FBD

[unstable load]

Crab,
What would your opinion be with regard to using ACF50 in place of WD40/Rocket as an anticorrosive?

[drop lead]

Goodrich hoist oiling

The Goodrich hoist CMM (component maintenance manual) contains the hoist cable maintenance requirements. This includes washing frequency, procedures and APPROVED products to be used, as Crab mentions use of a pully system (or approved alternate such as the zephyr machine should be used). These instructions specfically state WD40 is used as a "quick cleaning" procedure", correct cleaning is with water, the described lubricating procedure uses oil meeting Mil spec Mil-PRF-23699, which is turbine engine oil such as Mobil Jet 2 or equivelent.
I'd suggest getting hold of the CMM for your particular hoist and check the requirerd procedures.
Zephyr machine is highly recommended but is a very expensive bit of kit!