Cars...Cars... and more Cars...

Santeria is fitted with a high load, low friction car system made by Kenyon. Kenyon Traveller Systems are designed around a hardcote anodized Aluminum I-Beam Track that comes in 2 sizes. Cars run on SS wheels with SS Ball Bearings in free-floating races for minimum friction.

Originally marketed under the SEABOARD name.

Santeria has 5 different cars, 2 on the genoa sheeting track (6 pin), 2 on the genoa sheeting angler (4 pin), and 1 on the baby stay track (6 pin). Each pin runs on 6 stainless steel bearing. It would have cost me over 700$ to replace the cars. A company called RigRite still sells replacements for the Kenyon car system.

The project, take cars off for maintenance and repair.

What I found:

1. years of old gunk and grime built up around the pins impeding bearing efficiency.
2. Non stainless ball bearings, rusted together, really impeding bearing efficiency!
3. Inspection of the genoa car sheaves mounted to the top of the cars are garbage.
4. Some SS bearing had tiny flat spots from the years of wear and tear.

The solution:

1. A good cleaning
2. Throw out non-SS bearings
3. Replace SS ball bearings with flat spots (Ordered a bag of 100 SS 3/16" bearings for 8$ at Fastenal)
4. Fashion up new sheaves out of round plastic shanks until I can replace them...maybe next year.

The result:

1. Free flowing, smooth cars along the baby stay and genoa car tracks
2. The genoa sheet angling cars were running on ceased non-SS bearing and caused damage to the track by creating small burrs along its surface. I will have to sand and smooth down the aluminum burrs before the bearing will run unimpeded.
3. Found round plastic shanks from an old junk drawer and used these to replace the sheave.
4. Hours of swearing putting the bearing system back together 

The car system on this boat is now working much better.

Cost of project: 8$