Cam-matic 150 overhaul

I noticed that one of my mainsheet cleat cams was floppy and discovered a broken spring. The spring is available from Hobie or Harken, but Harken also sells a rebuild kit with new caps, washers and balls as well as the spring. It's $15-ish, compared to an all-new cleat for $32~36.

Anyone used that rebuild kit? Did it improve the acton of the cleat? I'm thinking of getting at least one of them, as I have one severely faded cleat (traveller) but the others look OK. I'd use the fully rebuilt one on the main. OTOH the kit is only $10 more than a pair of springs, so this would spruce up appearance of all of the cleats.

Is there a better cleat that I should get as these wear out?

EDIT: turns out that the "faded" cleat isn't a Cam-matic 150 after all; it's a Holt-Allen 76. I gather this is normal for the traveler on a 16? Seems to work fine on my desk but I did lose the traveler a few times over the weekend. Hard to say that it wasn't just user error, though,

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'00 H16 #104691
'78 H16 #32692 ex-rental [gone]
Old Holsclaw trailer
My Hobie 16 pages

Holt Allen?

I thought Hobies only used Seaway, Harken, and on later boats, Ronstan cleats.

The old steel Seaway cleats are much harder to operate than the Harken and Ronstans. If you have anything other than Harken or Ronstan, I would replace the cleat. The Harken 150 camatic cleats are very dependable. Sometimes they do get sticky, but if you take them apart and clean everything, they should work fine. I would only buy a rebuild kit if the cleat isn't working properly after disassembly or if you know one of the springs is broken or if any of the bearings are missing. I also recommend disassembling the cleat in a cardboard box lid or some other container so you don't lose the bearings when you pull everything apart.

sm

The HA76 looks VERY much like a H150 and shares the center spacing. It looks truly original to my 2000 H16 traveler and seems 100% interchangeable. Here is a comparison from the underside:



They are now known as Allen - it's a British company - and it's a current product which seems to be of good quality. But my Hobie dealer sells H150 springs and probably not HA76 parts, so it's probably in my best interest to have a H150 there. I'll clean up the HA76 and keep it as a backup.

The H150 uses three bearing layers of 11 balls, while the HA76 has two layers with maybe 15 on the bottom and 14 on the top. I haven't had a chance to see if they are flattened.

As I mentioned I DO have a broken spring but that isn't justification for getting the rebuild kit, as the springs are available individually. I'm wondering if anyone has used the rebuild kit and noticed an improvement from it.

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'00 H16 #104691
'78 H16 #32692 ex-rental [gone]
Old Holsclaw trailer
My Hobie 16 pages

After a spring broke, I rebuilt a 150 with the Harken kit (bought at West Marine) a couple of years ago. As you say, it's not much more expensive than a pair of springs. I can't say there was a remarkable improvement in performance, but it felt good to know I didn't have to worry about the balls for a long time. It wasn't part of your question, but I'd recommend you check the teeth on the cams carefully. If they're worn, your funds may be better put toward a whole new unit. The aluminum ones are hardy, but I did have one where the teeth got so bad they wouldn't grip well (after 15 years or so!).

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Jerome Vaughan
Hobie 16

I picked up two rebuild kits for some tired cams... the caps were cracked, the top layer of balls were all sun burned, etc..

I ended up rebuilding 3 cams with the 2 kits. All of my springs were intact, some cams just needed new balls, and some needed the caps and base. After the rebuild, everything worked better. It took a bit to separate the old plastic and not lose the balls, but otherwise it was pretty easy and well worth it.

Tom

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Tom
Fleet 259, Central Coast CA
H18 ('81)
H18 ('85)
H20 ('97)
H18 ('78)

I ended up buying a new H150 and a pair of springs. The idea was to use the new one for the main and rebuild the broken one for the traveler. Turns out it was not a field swappable part; the HA76 is a bit shorter and I could not bolt the H150 into place with the bolts that were sized for the HA76. Just a bit too short. Maybe I just need a becket that matches the H150.

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'00 H16 #104691
'78 H16 #32692 ex-rental [gone]
Old Holsclaw trailer
My Hobie 16 pages

Are there any cam repair kits for this type of original Hobie swivel cam cleats and are the metal teeth supposed to be exposed? I tried 3/16" line but it slips so I had to go up to 1/4".




I use them for positioning my jib travelers along with the lo-profile jib blocks.

The H150 cammatics have a plastic base under the cams which raises the height of the cams another 1/4" above the swivel plate (compared to the original ones, where the cams sit right on the swivel plate). The H150 cams' extra height increases the vertical angle that the rope has to be raised to uncleat. Since I normally sail solo, it is not easy to raise the jib traveler line high enough from the back of the boat to uncleat it, particularly when the jib sheet is tight. I usually have to release the tension on the jib sheet before re-positioning the jib traveler.

To solve a similar jib sheet vertical angle problem when I switched to the lo-profile jib blocks, I had to flatten their swivel plates to remove the extra height from the cams base.

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Tim
84 H16
82 H16
87 H14T
Tortola Sails: 115222
Blue Prism Sails: 88863
Clearwater, FL