Furler woes...

[rperret]

Hello

I have a Profurl RI25 Furler - probably a late 80's or early '90's vintage on a boat I recently purchased.

The boat's headstay attaches to the furler's titanium turnbuckle cylinder unit via a short link plate which is attached by two link plate screws (blue colored screws)

I was able to get one screw off - but can't get the other screw off - have used gentle persuasion, plus PB-Blaster multiple times sitting for days. Won't budge. I have a micro torch - tired heating it for 10-15 seconds - but that did not seem to help. Screw will no budge...

Need to get this off so I can adjust/inspect the turnbuckle. I would rather not break off the screw- since tyring to get the remains of the screw may be difficult and damage the titanium cylinder...

Any out of box ideas appreciated.

Rick
S/V Esperance
S2 27 US 40521

[Brion Toss]

Welcome to Profurl hell. The drum, as it happens, is aluminum. The little sign saying "Titanium" refers to the blue screws. As near as I can tell, the engineers at Profurl wanted to use screws that were as far apart on the galvanic scale from aluminum as possible. And then they cleverly left suggesting isolating the metals out of the manual. You have already tried most of the tactics for this situation. One more might be to get a Makita cordless impact driver, and fit the appropriate metric allen head in it. This might take some doing, but it is an amazing tool for jobs like this. If that doesn't work, you will need to take the furler off the boat, get the drum off, and jig it up in a drill press. There are some Profurl dealers that are all-too-familiar with this procedure. My favorite is Pacific Offshore in San Diego.
When/if you get that screw out, be sure to put some Tef-Gel under the head and at the top of the shaft before putting it back in. Don't put it on the threads, though, as these need to engage the nylock inserts on the linkplates.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[rperret]

Thanks Brion. Profurl hell would be a good place to be - its worse than that!

So titanium refers to the screws....so that explains the $12-14 per screw. I'm on the East Coast in Connecticut, so will try to find a rigger here. Issue is how to get the whole unit to the rigger - since I can't take that screw off - i can't remove the forestay - which means I can't take the foils off the forestay....what a farce.

Thanks

Rick