MacGregorSailors.com

When I purchased my 2006 , it had a working Raymarine wheel unit. During my very first sail (over 2 years ago), whatever held the wheel unit (or drive unit?) to the pedestal came loose and, apparently, rolled off the back into the deep. Would anyone be willing to share photos of how their pilot is attached? My first impulse is to fabricate something, but I need to know what is possible or even smart to do. Seems a waste to have an expensive autopilot that I cannot use. Please be as specific as you can.

Thanks in advance!

David
"Logan's Run"

I'm not sure what you are referring to. Are you talking about what hold's the drive motor in place, or the pin that locks the donut from turning?

You can find the installation instructions for the EV100 here http://www.raymarine.com/view/?id=6866

Perhaps these will help, from the archives...

Baha wrote:During my very first sail (over 2 years ago), whatever held the wheel unit (or drive unit?) to the pedestal came loose and, apparently, rolled off the back into the deep.

My last boat had that, or a similar, Raymarine autohelm. But the motor/drive unit had nothing holding it to the pedestal. It just sat in a hole in the hollow helm (sort of like the X helm), which reacted the torque of the wheel. The post pedestal mount used a pin of some sort, bolted to the pedestal, and a ring bolted to the motor/drive unit, which sleeved over the pin on the pedestal. Again, just to react the torque.

I would remove the wheel sometimes for more room in the cockpit, and the motor stayed with the stationary back cover of the wheel-mounted ring gear assembly. The only thing that had to be removed was the cable to the end of the motor, and that had a plug with screw collar.

But maybe yours is different.

Edit: K9Kampers' pics illustrate what I'm talking about, but mine simply had a hole in the helm just large enough for the motor to fit into. But same principle.

...simply had a hole in the helm just large enough for the motor to fit into...

Yeah. Like that!

And like this (the referenced Hunter - drive is where the clutch lever is, at about 4 o'clock):

here,s my install first pic is of the plate with welded pin after painting it black
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 0017-1.jpg

in this pic u can see the hole in the plate for hiding the drive motor inside the pedestal

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 010021.jpg

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 010018.jpg

Hope this helps u out

J

The Raymarine wheelpilot comes with a pedestal bracket in the kit which is no good for the Mac helm (curved bracket to mount to a pedestal). The Raymarine instructions suggest you need to purchase a helm bracket, part number E15017. The rod from this bracket protrudes into a slot in the back of the wheel about 4" around from the motor and prevents the wheel from spinning. The length of the rod is critical as it needs to pass through the back of the wheel but not clash with the spinning half of the wheelpilot. IIRC, the protrusion distance into the wheel is 10mm.

Rather than purchase this bracket, what most Mac owners (and myself) have done is to either
i. fabricate a helm version of the pedestal bracket supplied by either cutting off the curved bracket and using the rod.
ii. used stainless rod instead (diameter needs to be about 14mm, 1/2" has a bit of slop (others could comment on this).
iii. using the motor as the anchor point and fixing the motor tightly into the helm so the wheel can spin around the motor. Raymarine do not recommend this but there have been no reported issues apart from managing slop between the motor housing and the hole in the helm (using nylon fender washers to fix the motor).

It might pay to put a couple of photos up to show what you've got, this will help with the quality of the comments.

K9Kampers wrote:Perhaps these will help, from the archives...

Thanks to everyone for their advice! I think I will so with something like this one. My question is about the stainless rod that goes into the doughnut. Is that threaded for some kind of bolt to fix it to the doughnut? From your experience, do you think it advisable to fix some kind of rubber gasket between the fixing points and the motor and rod where it fastens to the pedestal?

Thanks again!

David

Highlander wrote:here,s my install first pic is of the plate with welded pin after painting it black
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 0017-1.jpg

in this pic u can see the hole in the plate for hiding the drive motor inside the pedestal

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 010021.jpg

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 010018.jpg

Hope this helps u out

J

This looks great! Did you do all the fabrication yourself?

Yes I cut the Alum pin off the supplied brkt , fabricated the alum plate from 1/4" alum flat bar then figured out where too weld it onto the flat alum plate & measured my hole for the drive motor & drilled 4 mounting holes , I made the plate that big as I had to move my RPM Gauge to a lower level to accommodate the wheel pilot so as I could cover up the hole from the rpm gauge

J

Baha wrote:My question is about the stainless rod that goes into the doughnut. Is that threaded for some kind of bolt to fix it to the doughnut?

If you look at K9Kamper's earlier post, the rod fits into a slot, and just sits in there, AFAIK. There's no rod in the pic, and my Hunter used the motor rather than the rod to react the torque, but the slot for the rod is clearly shown. The ring is mounted to the wheel, and presumably is quite stable.

This is on an . I made a pin from a SS bolt. A nut on either side of the pedestal wall secures it. I cut the head off the bolt and bent it to align with the slot in the donut. There is a fair bit of side to side torque that I think is better for the pin to take rather than the motor.

I like Tomfoolery's setup with the thick metal actuator coming out of the pedestal, but I wonder if it's strong enough to withstand the torque? It MUST be, but I'm kind of paranoid from birth

The additional advantage is, the rubber nipple at the end of the electrical line would be protected from UV rays, inside the pedestal. Sorry I didn't think of that when I installed my AP and I chose to add a metal rod on the side of the pedestal for leverage. It looks OK (no pics, sorry, boat is tarped up and away...) and works just fine, but the rubber nipple has deteriorated within one year and that kind of bugs me

Spector wrote:This is on an . I made a pin from a SS bolt. A nut on either side of the pedestal wall secures it. I cut the head off the bolt and bent it to align with the slot in the donut. There is a fair bit of side to side torque that I think is better for the pin to take rather than the motor.

This is a great solution...and cheap..right up my alley!!!!

Thanks!