Look at the harken page for the different traveler cars - they have dimensions on them as well as the number of bearings required (the smaller cars use fewer bearings). The Harken cars are great but they are suceptible to sand and junk causing them to lock up (as would any traveler car). In the case of the newer captive ball systems (where the bearings stay in the car when it's removed) the tracks are much more sensitive to proper bearing shape. Apparently somewhere I had some debris jam up my travler that caused some tiny little flat spots on a couple of bearings. Those flat spots lead to jams where the bearings recirculate which lead to more flat spotted bearings which lead to more jams....and so on. Eventually, the traveler was very undependable (it's a year old) and it was getting scary to sail downwind with the spinnaker up (since the traveler is your last line of defense). I replaced the bearings and the thing is smoother than I ever remember it.



Yeah...I remember the first time I went "hmmm...how does this come apart"....BWINGGG ... sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle . Most of the brown colored bearings found themselves forever hidden in a recently mulched area of my yard.

Jake - thank you for the advice. I will go look up that site and invest in the ball bearings and loader.

So far, the cat has been relatively easy on the budget. I spent $20 on a thick line for raising the mast, and an enormous waste of $180 on a useless ez-step mast stepper. $40 to get a working traveller is fine; it just seems like a lot of money for tiny balls (wow that pun never gets old).

I could be wrong but I think I have the newer car. It looks almost identical to the "new" car featured on the Murray's site. It could be, however, that the previous owner purchased the new car but used the old ball bearings in it?

Greg - I'm originally from NH! I learned to sail near Lake Ossippee in Freedom, NH (albeit on my old sunfish). Seems like you're pretty close to Lake Winnipesaukee? How's the cat sailing out there?

Aaron, the small car is almost square and the larger car is decidedly rectangular. Also, a 50% greater load rating on the bigger car.

My N5.8 came with both the long and short cars, with the small car installed. The PO apparently replaced the big car because it didn't feel very good. Well, after feeling how bad the "newer" short car was and then checking how the long car felt, I had to agree. Took the long car apart, cleaned the car bearing race with a small, round, nylon brush and soap and water, rubbed all the balls clean, cleaned the track, sprayed it all down with Sailkote and the "old" car glides beautifully. The next step is going to be filling whatever little nicks I have in the track with epoxy steel and file and sand everything smooth.

Also, not sure I'd use soap as a lube. Soap, by it's very nature, attaches to dirt.

Harken traveler bearing replacement chart

Harken small boat traveler installation and maintenance sheet

I noticed that these newer cars have fixed ends as opposed to the older, removable ends. So much for taking things apart and scrubbing the race clean.

They also say not to use lube so that the balls don't slide. Hmmm, the grease in car wheel bearings doesn't appear to keep those bearings from sliding.

the newer captive bearing car has a small (squarish) copper colored wire that runs on tne inside of the ball track. All the bearings are the same between the various cars.

but if they upgraded the car, and couldn't get all the bearing back in(seen this done twice now) and just decided that is was working fine with the amount of bearings that they got in there, that might have been the cause. Pure speculation of course.

I was fishing on Lake Ossippe when you wrote this email.
I am very close to Winnipesaukee. Not much Cat-traffic on Winni but lots of people asking questions and wanting to know more. I should have Rick Bliss come up for a while.
The wind has been flukey this year and you can't tell what you are going to get one minute to the next. Light winds lately have been great to introduce this stuff to my 9 year old though. He is a trappin' fool! Sings the whole time on the wire.
Enjoy Utah, I drove through SLC in May and it is truely a beautiful place. Good sailing.
Greg

Jake, where would I find K-Y jelly?

I went to mcmaster.com for those bearings. Thanks!

Do you think I should invest in one of those car loaders?

-Aaron

Any Drug Store, probably next to the condoms

ok go ahead make fun of me knowing that.

Errr... right...

Probably a useful item to have when it's "that time of the month" anyway...

I'm not sure whether or not I should be embarrassed about *not* knowing what K-Y jelly is

Yes. How are you going to gunk up the bearings with K-Y when you go to take the car off?

If the point is to replace the bearings anyway, why would you care if the old ones fling about everywhere?

Because you are sure to drop some of the new Torlon balls, they bounce way back into the dirt, stainless steel metal shavings and dust bunnies under your workbench, and you have to fill up with old ones. #*&^#$%^&#@@#$%

A helpful hint for that kind of problem. Take your regular or shop vac, put some old pantyhose or cheesecloth over the end of the hose and then slide the extension tube on. Poke around for the lost item and then sort through the junk collected in the pantyhose. If you have too much crud under the bench, you may have to clear out the tube a couple times, but it does keep you from having to dig through the entire canister.

holy crap steve, thats awesome, I have a big magnet for finding metal things, but now days it seams most components are impervious to magnets. Thanks for the tip.

Charlie Johnson's excellent suggestion: carry a small bottle of soapy water- give the traveler car several squirts and wiggles when mounting up to go out. Splash it some and all the dirt is flushed & gone.
Repeat as necessary....like every time you go sailing.
Round Torlon balls/hard plastic body/anodized aluminum track...everything wants to be CLEAN!