When to replace drum shaft?

Greetings,

I have been lurking on this soaking in some of the information regarding issue with the mirage drive becoming unlocked. My kayak is a 2011 Outback and I am experiencing the same problem that many have described, after a few reasonably hard pedals either one or both sides of the mirage drive drum shaft pops out of the Click and Go fittings.

Here are the things I have done or noticed:
1) The sprockets, mast, fins, and sprocket guards.
2) I have noticed that the drum shaft appears to be wiggling out a bit which I know indicates can indicate a worn drum shaft.
3) The pedals have been put in a new Outback by one of my local dealers and the problem persists.
4) I also noticed that there is some spread in the pedals when I hold them up by the pedals and try to separate the pedals.
5) Just to add to this, the pedals appear to be fully locking into place and we never had this problem in the past.

My next course of action was going to be to replace the drum shaft. How do I know if I need to replace the drums as well? Or what drive spine?

How tight should the chains be on the unit? I noticed the separation is significant when compared to my newer 2015 V2 pedals.

Any other guidance would be appreciated, thanks!

My drum shaft has been slipping to one side after moderate use. I think this could be causing my mirage drive to constantly pop out when pedaling with moderate force.

How do I know if I need to replace the drum shaft only? Is it possible that I need to replace the drive spine too, or the drums? How do I determine what exactly need to be replaced?

_________________
Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

_________________
Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

Just to follow up on this.

To fix the problem I did two things as my final steps:

1) Replace the Spine.
2) Tighten the cables.

*note other items were addressed but did not solve root problem.


I don't know if simply tightening the cables to begin with would have solved the problem by itself, but I did not have the patience to get into an experimental exercise. I was going to replace the drum shaft but it did not make much sense to do so. The shaft is steel and the spine is plastic so in my assessment if anything is going to be worn out it is the spine. The shaft did show signs of plastic debris within the splines that helped drive this opinion.

Thankfully, I did not have to bother with the click and go clips.