Raymarine 4000 MKII

[Jim Seamans]

Seems as though my mkII drive unit has given up. Making a wonderful grinding noise when trying to turn the wheel..

Anyone have this problem?
How long did it take to get fixed?
Did it have to go back to Raymarine?
Did they just swap it with a working drive?
What was the cost?

I will be calling the local service repair shop on Monday to find out most of these questions, but thought I would ask here first.

 

[Tim R.]

Is it truly grinding or does it make the same sound if you engauge the drive and turn the wheel by hand? Check the belt tension. There is an adjustable cam that can correct this.

 

[Jim Seamans]

Its grinding, Tim

Before I left the boat, I took it apart and took the belt off. I then sent some commands to it and it just made/not made noise. I'm pretty sure it is shot...either internal gears are stripped...

 

[Tim R.]

The motors on those are fairly easy to replace yourself if they are still available from Raymarine.

 

[Tom S]

Tim is right -- . If its not the belt in the steering wheel its probably the motor it might be the internal nylon planetary gears inside the motor - they can strip after a while. I replaced the ones on mine that were stripped - There are a whole bunch of tiny little gears. Its not hard to do but its a bit like a jigsaw puzzle putting them back in, just document how the other ones come out so you can reassemble properly

 

[seadaddler]

Jim

Hi how's every thing with you and Joan,Happy Easter.
When I sailed down from NY to Florida we were out in the Ocean and the seas were very confusing coming from all sides and running the auto 24/7 I guess was too much for the auto and on the second day the auto starting making a grinding noise and than binding up.
We decided to head into NC and try and repair it,the motor on the wheel is treaded in and unscrews out easy to check to see if it is working which mine did and than took the wheel apart and tried putting every thing back together but could not get it to work properly,the motor would work OK but the wheel would bind up and not work.
Mine was still under warranty so I sent the motor and wheel part back to ray and I think they replaced what ever was wrong no charge,it did not seem to take too longand you can check with them on the progress.
It is working fine just like new and I have the newer S1 but the wheel and motor are the same.
Give Ray repair department a call and they were just great.
Nick

 

[Dan Johnson]

Jim...

even with the clutch lever disengaged my wheel assembly would "lock up" and make the wheel almost impossible to turn. Tore down the motor gear drive unit twice but could not find a reason for it to be doing what it was doing. When clutch engaged, it works fine.

I suspected the idler wheels after the planetary gears, but after the second attempt at a fix and still not being able to find the root cause, I gave up!

Not wanting to deal with a safety issue as a result of a freeze-up, have pulled the system and am installing an S-1 (being documented on other posts).