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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 2:44 pm 
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mmiller wrote:
I'll ask engineering.

I am guessing the hollows are a molding issue. Not sure it is a defect, but can they compress under load to start the flattening? Or is the lubrication more critical to prevent the wear?

Understand that we cycle tested these things in gritty water for tens of thousands of cycles.


Thanks. I don't think anyone is really being overly critical. Nothing wrong with a little healthy criticism. Finding an easy and speedy solution for the OP is the objective. DIY bearings seems pretty simple.

Testing and Quality is my career. We do our best to find potential risks, but we can't always be exhaustive in our testing. In manufacturing we also get variances without tight quality control. Just the way it goes.

I'd love to see a flat spot on the bearings up close. Curious to know if they are deformed from compression or worn flat.


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 5:20 pm 
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Location: Oceanside, California
Got a response from Engineering.

Quote:
Delrin. Voids are common in the extrusion process and not a concern.


Image

Image

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Hobie Cat USA
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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 5:22 pm 
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Thinking of wear... A guy pedaled the length of the Mississippi. The water was fine grit... muddy. He was wearing through stainless parts.

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


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:35 pm 
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pounce wrote:
I'd love to see a flat spot on the bearings up close. Curious to know if they are deformed from compression or worn flat.


Four of the 15 pieces in that sprocket have flat spots...some worse than the others.

Image

Image


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:38 pm 
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mmiller wrote:
Thinking of wear... A guy pedaled the length of the Mississippi. The water was fine grit... muddy. He was wearing through stainless parts.


If I thought it wouldn't damage the housing, I'd use titanium, niobium or zirconium rod to replace the plastic bearings. The company I work for make these and other exotic metals.


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 5:33 am 
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trojanchorse wrote:
pounce wrote:
I'd love to see a flat spot on the bearings up close. Curious to know if they are deformed from compression or worn flat.


Four of the 15 pieces in that sprocket have flat spots...some worse than the others.

Image

Image


The images look like they have a problem showing up, at least for me. Maybe they aren't public?


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 2:59 pm 
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Put it back together (mostly) and it pedals by hand silky smooth. No more squeak. I got frustrated trying to even out the chains so put it down and will finish that part a little later.


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 5:43 am 
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trojanchorse wrote:
Put it back together (mostly) and it pedals by hand silky smooth. No more squeak. I got frustrated trying to even out the chains so put it down and will finish that part a little later.


Don't leave us hanging. Did you make your own delrin bearings?


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 3:16 pm 
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pounce wrote:
Don't leave us hanging. Did you make your own delrin bearings?

Sorry. I thought I had posted that. Yes. I used my Dremel to cut all 15 new Acetal copolymer bearings. I cut slightly oversized then sanded the ends flat...100 grit, 150 grit, then 180 grit.

Everything was easy except replacing the chains and idler cable. I'm gonna take another crack at that tonight.

I considered replacing all 30, but I have a feeling that this is going to become routine maintenance and I'll be tearing it apart again next year. I still have over 2' of rod left.

3 oz. of Super Lube is more than enough to do the job.


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:08 pm 
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trojanchorse wrote:
pounce wrote:
Don't leave us hanging. Did you make your own delrin bearings?

Sorry. I thought I had posted that. Yes. I used my Dremel to cut all 15 new Acetal copolymer bearings. I cut slightly oversized then sanded the ends flat...100 grit, 150 grit, then 180 grit.

Everything was easy except replacing the chains and idler cable. I'm gonna take another crack at that tonight.

I considered replacing all 30, but I have a feeling that this is going to become routine maintenance and I'll be tearing it apart again next year. I still have over 2' of rod left.

3 oz. of Super Lube is more than enough to do the job.


Cool. Glad it worked out easy. Since Hobie isn't offering these at the moment it's really good to know it's not all that difficult to make your own. I am sure others will benefit from your posts.


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 6:49 pm 
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5 hours on the water today and the drive worked flawlessly. It shifts better than new. When I came in, there was a small amount of grease that had pushed out of the cracks.

Edit: Another 4 hours in the salt today. Still works perfectly and no signs of excess grease today.

Edit 2: 6 more hours in the ocean and still works perfectly.


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:29 pm 
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I don't know anything about the 180 drive, but my GT drives squeaked all the time and that was driving me crazy, as I'm constantly pedaling. My solution was to replace the delrin bearings with nylon bearings, and use one less bearing per shaft. It's silent now, and that's without any grease or any other type of lubricant. I've put at least 1K pedaling miles on my GT drive since making this change, almost all in saltwater. I've had no noise issue and I see no sign of wear on the nylon bearings or stainless parts.


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:23 am 
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NowhereMan wrote:
I don't know anything about the 180 drive, but my GT drives squeaked all the time and that was driving me crazy, as I'm constantly pedaling. My solution was to replace the delrin bearings with nylon bearings, and use one less bearing per shaft. It's silent now, and that's without any grease or any other type of lubricant. I've put at least 1K pedaling miles on my GT drive since making this change, almost all in saltwater. I've had no noise issue and I see no sign of wear on the nylon bearings or stainless parts.


That's really interesting. Thanks for posting. Curious how you made the choice to switch to nylon? Any specific nylon rod that you used? Link?

No lube at all? Not even any left over from the previous set of bearings? I think that's interesting. Did you make the choice to eliminate lube or was it just chance?


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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:00 am 
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Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 1:42 am
Posts: 14
Location: Salvador, Bahia, Brasil
Hello, I will rekindle this topic.

Recently a friend lost two sprocket bearings during a maintenance. This friend does at least three weekly trips when trolling, between 20 and 30 km (12 to 19 miles) for each fishery. It really is a hard user.

He uses a Hobie Revolution 13, but due to the lack of bearings and the high price of a full spine, he has used Stelth Profish.

Can we replace the bearings with carbon fiber rods, those used in aeromodelling?

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 Post subject: Re: MD180 drive squeak
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 7:40 am 
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I have similar "squeak" except mine is intermittent and only happens when drive is in going thru the water (so does not happen holding with hands with no water pressure on it). I sprayed with some dry silicone which works works for like 1 hour before squeak returned...again not all the time. Otherwise drive works fine and all cables etc seem to have proper tension (but I'm really not certain about that)

I have some questions and posting on this old message rather than starting a new thread).
1) since its only 1.5 year old 180 drive, should dealer fix under warranty especially considering they likely wont notice without actually trying on the water for an hour or more?
2) I am not handy so hate trying things without asking here first so which of following, if any, make sense to try (these were things other folks mentioned when I did google search for mirage drive squeaks)
a) Try different lubricants and what are best other already mentioned Hobie Lube...I will do this eventually but currently not home so have nothing handy...someone mentioned Inox Supreme Lubricants or BreakFree but unsure if these will deteriorate plastic parts?
b) Adjust tension of the cables
c) Tighten idler pulley (if so how do you do that?)
d) Take idler pulley off and grease the bearings (?) inside..or just replace with new pulley as they are rather low cost (unsure if thats easy or not)


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