I finally got up the nerve to open up my winches on my 7.60 and clean/grease/oil them. Wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I couldn't find any instructions on servicing the Meissner winches so I read about some other winches and did the best I could.
The circlip which holds the drum on is easily removed with a very small, flat screwdriver. Just work it around until it pops off the top. Carefully remove the drum because the bearing cage will separate and the roller bearings could drop out. There are two pawls on the drum which will stay in place when you lift it off. The other two pawls are beneath a plate on the bottom of the center stem. You'll have to remove the winch from the boat to get at these.
I'll post some photos below. I won't give a step by step. Basically I just cleaned everything, oiled the pawls with WD40 and greased everything else with white lithium grease. There is a gear at the bottom of the center stem which was difficult to grease. I couldn't figure out if there was a way to remove it so just had to pack grease in the best I could. I'd recommend taking pictures at each step and taking the winch to your shop/garage to do the work (to eliminate anything dropping into the water, etc.).
The halyard winch is much simpler and doesn't have to be removed from the boat. This is a good place to start.
Locked
