Head sail furlers

Has anyone else had problems with their factory fitted furler? Our Facnor seems to be very stiff now we have a larger headsail fitted than the blade. It also leaks oil on the lowest section of the sail. We have been on the web site of the manufacturer to see if there is any standard maintenance to be carried out but found nothing. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Headsail Furling Improvements.

I spent a lot of time ensuring my self-tacking jib can be furled by hand, without using a winch, in winds up to F6. The following is a digest of the work undertaken on my Facnor (371 2002).

1. Tension the backstay before furling.
2. Replace the 8mm furling line by 10mm (caution if you have a very big genoa check that the drum can take all the furling line required).
3. Install ball bearing blocks for the furling line at the base of the stanchions to reduce friction.
4. The foremost block is positioned to ensure a smooth run of the line onto the drum.
5. Inside the foil sections at each joint there is a plastic bearing that surrounds the forestay wire. Where the foil enters the drum there should be 2 plastic bearings, on Brightside these were missing the symptom being an occasional jerky metallic rubbing being heard and felt in strong winds when furling.
6. There is no maintenance on the drum other than washing with fresh water but the swivel at the top of the sail needs to be washed once a year following which I apply MacLub dry PTFE spray to the ball bearings.
7. Ensure the jib sheet is free to run though the blocks and the mast and has been washed once a year and is free of twists.

WRT oil leaks. No oil is used on our furler but we had staining due to aluminium dust/paste due to movement in the joints to the foil sections. If Tefgel anti corrosion paste has been used on the stainless steel screws that could give the appearance of oil staining.

Hope the above is of help.
Regards
Mike

Many thanks to those who have come in with some suggestions; we will work through them all and see if the system works any better.
safe sailing in 2009.
Jacky