Autoprop

[meirgerner]

I have a Hunter 33 Legend with 1" shaft. About three years ago I upgraded the standard two fixed blade prop into an H5 Autoprop. Recently we started having few problems:
1. When get into gear, The blades get in the right position longer than before with a "frightening" sound pulse.
2. Immediately when get into gear, there are few vibrations as if one of the blades is not in place with the others and the whole prop is not in ballance.

Would appreciate if someone experience such phenomenon and respectively recommendations.
Regards
Meir

 

[chuckwayne]

You shouldn't be having bearing issues with a three year old Autoprop...
It sounds like one of several possibilities:
check the prop for barnicles or other growth - a small amount of stuff on one blade can cause uneven pitching
you should be greasing your prop at least once a year, twice if used heavily
check the prop blades by turning by hand - they should turn smoothly with minimal effort and not bind.
pull on each blade - perpendicular to the shaft - the blades shouldn't have any slack or wobble.
If cleaning and greasing doesn't fix the problem, you may need to adjust the bearing torque (under the round cap on each blade) and relock the nuts. If the bearings feel worn - and have play or wobble, you may need to get a replacement bearing set from Autoprop.
I don't think you could have worn bearings because the seals are robust and greasing flushes out any sand or dirt - but if it feels gritty you may have to disassemble the prop (easy) and clean and grease.
We've had our Autoprop H5 for 12 years with only greasing and cleaning and we love it! great performance, minimal maintenance needs - a huge improvement over conventional props

 

[meirgerner]

Dear Chuck
Thanks for your encouraging response. We did dive and cleaned the barnicles off the blades and it significantly improved all the perforements. Still, when geting into gear, we feel few vibrations as if one of the blades is getting in the right position with slight delay. We might consider taking the boat out to the shipyard to further clean and greaze the prop.
Meir

 

[chuckwayne]

That's good news! Our Autoprop has been trouble free for 11 years now - ther's very little that can go wrong with it other than physical damage.
You can actually grease the prop underwater, but the grease adapter is small and the plugs are tiny. don';t try it unless you have spare parts

 

[fstbttms]

...there's very little that can go wrong with it other than physical damage.

That pesky little proclivity to throw blades notwithstanding.

 

[chuckwayne]

Autoprops can't throw blades unless someone leaves off the nuts, locking tabs and safety cover. They are not like the Goris with the dinky pin holding the blades to the hub

 

[fstbttms]

Autoprops can't throw blades unless someone leaves off the nuts, locking tabs and safety cover. They are not like the Goris with the dinky pin holding the blades to the hub

Well, Brunton's recalled a whole bunch of model years because they were throwing blades and I have personally come across several Autoprops that had done this. So I know for a fact that they can throw blades simply because of a flawed design. That said, at some point Brunton's redesigned the prop to eliminate this problem.