Webasto Repair, Winch Replacement

Webasto Expansion Tank

A new cap on the Webasto expansion tank fixed most of the problems of leaking coolant.

Manual winch on boom for hoisting and lowering dinghy

The self-tailing manual winch mounted on the boom has been used for hoisting and lowering our dinghy.

Boom with mounted manual winch

Jim removed this manual winch from our boom, and will be installing the new electric winch in its place.

Yea! We are able to use the Webasto heater again. Heat is a good thing! But when the system got hot yesterday, some of the coolant leaked. Turns out that the pressure relief cap on the expansion tank has worn, so we replaced it with a new cap. That helped the bulk of the leaking, but today we noticed that there is still a bit of coolant overflow, which we will have to address by adding an overflow reservoir…another project!

The first step in installing the new electric winch on our boom is removing the existing manual winch. Jim got the manual winch off yesterday afternoon, but work time was cut short today due to rain. We’ll resume this project when we have a bit of dry weather.

Superwinch arrives!

Jim unpacking the Superwinch and battery charger

Jim unpacking the Superwinch and battery charger

We now have gathered all the piece parts for replacing our manual dinghy-lifting winch with a new electric version. The Superwinch and battery charger that we ordered from Amazon arrived this week, and Jim bought the Optima battery at a local Bend auto supply store.

Superwinch package

Superwinch package

We hooked up everything in our garage in a test mode to check that it works. It does! Now we can pack it up to take it to the boat next week when we head up to Anacortes. After we get settled on the boat, we will tackle the actual project of installing the new winch system.

Superwinch and charger

Superwinch and charger

Testing the Superwinch, battery, and battery charger

Testing the Superwinch, battery, and battery charger