Sam: Our ST4000 started slipping in some fairly rough seas about midway on the trip back from the Bahamas. When we got to Florida, I took it apart and managed to tighten the belt tension a smidge by using a variation on Rick's right angle needle nose pliers method. I wish I'd had a pair of those onboard. It would have made the job a lot easier. BTW, isn't it fun to take the wheel apart? I ended up taking mine apart three or four times and, each time, I got a little faster and dropped fewer screws ands plastic bits.
I also felt a need to lubricate the rollers and just gave each of them a little shot of WD40 because that's what I had handy. I"m sure silicone grease would work better and last longer. No, you definitely don't want whatever you use to get anywhere near that belt. In fact, the next time I have mine apart, I may be tempted to put a little fanbelt dressing on it just to reduce on the potential for slippage. Right now, it's working and I'm very reluctant to fix it. Good luck, Phil On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Rick Morel <[email protected]> wrote: > At 10:16 AM 6/26/2009, Sam wrote: > >Yes, it is a wheel pilot. I bought a new belt but did not buy the whole > >kit from Raymarine. The docs from Raymarine indicate the kit has the > >belt and grease, I assumed for the rollers since we would not want > >grease near this belt. Rollers are all spinning freely but the unit > >seems a bit firm with the new belt on. > > Let me think back... I had an ST4000+. I'm trying to think. It may > have had grease on the rollers. If so it almost certainly was > silicone grease. I'll check. I'm sure I have saved info on that wheel > drive, but we're not at boat-home now. > > One thing. There is an adjustment for the belt. There's a black > plastic cap on the motor side of the drive. I think it's near the > motor. When you remove it, there's an allen adjusting screw with a > locknut. The locknut is flat and has two holes in it for a special > tool. I used a right angle long nose pliers. It's a trick to adjust > so that it doesn't disengage randomly on one end, and it doesn't drag > when disengaged on the other end. > > I wound up buying an old Simrad pilot, with the external belt. the > motor checked out the same for no-load and stalled current. I > connected directly to the motor, bypassing the drivers in the motor > assembly. That was the end of the problems with the wheel drive. I > now have an Raymarine S1 with the wheel drive II. They finally got it > right. > > Rick 'n' Cathy > S/V Valkyrie > > http://www.morelr.com/valkyrie > > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html >
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