Old Hobies and their Jib Blocks

I sailed for 5 years on My H16 without replacing them. I didn't know until after I had the boat for 2 year that a block was even supposed to be there.

It will still work. Just harder to sheet and will wear out the sheets.

Matt,

Can you change those? I have an '81 H16 that my son is reworking that has the same problem. Is there a fix or do you need to replace?

Clayton

The cars are rivited together typically. It may be possible to drill out one of the pins and replace a sheave and pin with a clevis. I don't have specs on how and what to use though.

The car replacements vary depending on the style. Cleat on the car or not.

Yes, same situation. Is there not a sheave or plastic pulley that can be attached to the steel spindles without dismantling and/or replacing the whole thing? Perhaps some sort of snap together piece? Would be a great idea if it were physically possible given the stresses involved.

Jeff... If I understand this correctly, you are talking about the cheek block rivet to the mast, utilized as a downhaul purchase.
You cannot replace only the plastic wheel. But the cheek block is sold for about $20.00.

Patrick

I replaced mine just this summer. I purchased new sheaves from Schaefer with 5/16" bores(I'll find the part number if you're interested), and drilled out the rivet in the old block. (The rivets seem to be pretty hard, use a lot of oil.) Then, I bored out one side of the rivet hole in the bracket to accept a 5/16 dia. stainless shoulder bolt (1/4-20 thrd on the end). I left the hole in the other side of the bracket small as clearance for a 1/4 thread. I fed the shoulder bolt thru the 5/16 clearance hole, thru the sheave, and let the 1/4-20 end of the shoulder bolt protrude thru the opposite bracket. Then I put a jam nut on the shoulder screw, locking it to the one side of the bracket. Then you can trim off the head of the shoulder bolt. I did it this way instead of just putting and pin and cotter keys in it so that I knew the sheave was spinning on the shoulder bolt and the shoulder bolt wasn't spinning relative to the bracket. I sailed it hard in Florida all last week and it works great so far. I'll post a pic later.

Everyone is going through an awful lot of trouble to replace a pulley that isn't critical to the functionality of the boat. For about $20 (as I read earlier) you can have to proper part and just replace the whole cheek block. Surely there are more important things to spend you time and money on for your boat?

I was talking about the jib cars. Mine have the spring loaded cleats, and cost a little more than $20.00 Anyway, I just like working on the boat. As to whether or not the jib car sheave is necessary for proper operation, it probably isn't, but the sheet does feed much smoother with a good sheave in place.

Here's a couple pics. This is before I cut off the head and excess shank of the screws. Not pretty, but, except for the sheaves I repaired it with what I had laying around in the garage. If you could see the rest of my boat you'd know that I'm interested in seaworthiness and cost effectiveness as opposed to beauty. (Pretty costs too much) The sheaves were $3.50 each. I recall now that I couldn't drill out the rivet with a HSS bit (smoked the bit) so I had to grind off the rivet head and drive out the rivet.

Another

Sorry about that, from your original post I thought you were talking about the jib halyard block and the cheeck block on the mast.

That WAS what I was talking about...not the cars.

I think Matt had the best response, about wearing out the jib halyard rope. It is tought on them, but I'd rather replace the rope, than fool with my water-tight mast. Other than that problem, the slight gain in ease of tightening the halyard doesn't seem to be worth the trouble.

Sorry, I saw Matt talking about 'sheets' so I assumed we were talking jib cars.