Excessive Creaking from 1999 Starflyer Winch

[GTS]

Have an issue with my starflyer spaceflyer. was told to use silicone spray to lubricate gears, cables, etc. did so, now the noise when I crank it down is awful... like a growling sound. now what do I do?

[shawnrpg]

It's hard to tell exactly where the noise is coming from. If we move around the PUP, we can hear it; if we put our ear near the lift post, we can hear it; however, the noise is loudest when I'm underneath the PUP with my head directly under the winch and my hand on it while someone is turning the crank.
I can't see anything vibrating giving an indication of where the noise is coming from.

I sprayed PB Blaster Silicon Spray onto all of the cable pulleys and wiped all of the cables down with the silicon spray. That didn't seem to lessen the noise.
The next time I'm out at my In-laws (where the camper is stored), I will see if letting the unit sit for a week with the silicon spray on everything and penetrating oil directly between the gears has helped. I will also re-apply silicon spray everywhere.

Maybe it has always made this noise but since I was always outside in the past, it wasn't as noticeable. We were in a fairly large garage when we noticed that the noise was a lot louder.

Shawn

[Houston Remodeler]

Throwing this out there;

Are you sure the noise isn't coming from the cable pulleys and being transferred ? Ours were noisy until we lubed the pulleys in the vertical supports

[Houston Remodeler]

Throwing this out there;

Are you sure the noise isn't coming from the cable pulleys and being transferred ?

[jcarlilesiu]

Sorry shawn. I don't know anything about pups.

Welcome to the forum though

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

[shawnrpg]

Hi all,

I'm a recent member of the Starcraft Owner's Forum as I'm a proud new owner of a 1999 Starcraft Starflyer. This PUP belonged to my step-father and mother but they never used it, so my family and I have been using it for the past 5-6 years. My step-father passed away last year and I recently [finally] got the title transferred into my name. Now it's time for upgrades and refurbishment .

After removing the canvas (which was getting moldy so we're re-canvasing the whole PUP since my wife is hyper-sensitive to mold) two week, I noticed the the passenger side of the roof was about 2 inches lower than the driver side when all the way up. While I was lowering the roof to check the height variation between the four corners at different heights, we noticed that there was an excessively loud creaking noise coming from the winch area. I remember the winch making some noise in the past when I lowered the roof, but I didn't ever remember it being as loud it was this time.

After much searching, numerous calls to Starcraft/Jayco/Dealers, YouTube searches, internet searches, and downloading various lift system manuals, I was able to find out that my PUP uses a Starcraft Lift System (not a Goshen or L&W that I've seen in other posts). The winch was made by Shelby Industries and has model number 5438 stamped on the side. There are no yokes (like on Jaycos) or whiffle trees (like on many other manufacturers) that the cables attach to; they wrap around a 1-1/2 inch drum directly attached to a couple gears coming off the extension tube. There is no pressure plate between the lift gear and the ratchet that holds the roof up; the gear teeth and ratchet hold it up by positive engagement. Cranking up immediately starts to lift the roof and cranking down immediately starts to lower the roof.
I've tried using brake cleaner to clean all grease/oil/crud off all of the gears but that didn't help.
I tried putting heavy duty grease on the teeth (thinking there was a lot of friction when the gear teeth were meshing) of the two gears but that didn't help.
I tried spraying PB Blaster penetrating oil between the gears and between the gear and large washer-like part by the spool but that didn't seem to help either.

I called Shelby Industries to see what they say but I'm still waiting on a return phone call.

Does anyone else have this excessive noise problem?
Any ideas on next steps to try and locate the creaking?
I even thought about cutting up some 1 inch thick foam insulation board to build a box for around the winch to try to deaden the noise.

Sorry for the long post.

Shawn