Wheelpilot Repair

We have one of these Raymarine Wheelpilots, not the fancy below-decks autopilots like our fancy friends have but a wheel pilot.     We don't use it too much.  For one thing, Fujin is on the high end of the size boat you can get away with a wheel pilot on.  Any bigger and we would have had the below-decks thing (for many more $$$).   Mainly, it's just freeking noisy.   Any relaxation that is gained by the extra set of hands is offset by the wrrrreeee wrreeeeee wreeeeeee wreeeeee wreee wreee wreeeeeeeee.   So we don't use it much.

I did a lot of single handed sailing last year to get my hours in for the Captain's License.  Even then, I tried not to rely on it when I had to leave the helm for short periods of time (like to raise and lower the main).

On the last day of the season, we took Fujin up to Salem, MA for the winter.   I singlehanded and Linda drove.   I had way more fun.   On this day, I had some pretty heavy wind and I really had my hands full on the trip.  It was quite thrilling.  As I approached Salem, I flipped on the autopilot to go do something.  It worked perfectly as usual (wreeee wreeeeeee wreeee wreeee) for a few seconds and then suddenly made a god awful grinding noise and stopped turning the wheel.   RIP Autopilot.    Now I had a pretty fun time getting the sails down that day with no autopilot.

I brought the wheel and drive assembly home for the winter and finally got around to working on it.  I separated the motor from the gearbox and applied 12VDC to it.  The motor spins just fine.   The cheesy plastic gearbox is that culprit.   Looking around online, it seems this is a common point of failure.  It took a while to find the part number (A18088 - this is committed to memory now for some reason).

Anyway, the part came today ($120 + p/s), and I replaced it.

From Autopilot Repair

The disassembled drive assembly.  I did not lose any of the 21 ball bearings.

From Autopilot Repair

The ball bearing retainers and drive ring re-assembled.

From Autopilot Repair

The motor and gearbox assembly re-attached.  The Old gearbox is the black thing between the two halves of the drum.

From Autopilot Repair

And all put back together and ready for April!