HANDS-ON
AUTOHELM REPAIR: Saved by Google By Steve Morrell The cover for the belt adjustment (indicated by arrow and painted white here for photo).
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ast year, I purchased a sailboat with a Raytheon Autohelm ST4000 + wheel self-steering unit. During use, it meandered a bit, sometimes extremely. Obviously, it was not working right. I have owned two other boats with wheel Autohelms. One I had installed, and the other came with the boat. Both worked flawlessly, although the latter one required some small, simple mechanical repairs. I was not involved with the setup on either, so I never really had to deal with anything but their operation, reading the owner’s manual only lightly. The Autohelm system, although not designed for heavy voyaging, is great for most boating, is very simple and you can learn how to operate one in a matter of minutes. I checked out the dockside setup procedure to be done after installation and found that the drive belt was slipping. One thing I learned from my two previous Autohelms was that Raytheon didn’t like you to open up their equipment. Everything was to be done by an authorized service rep. My first breakdown occurred a few years ago while under way, going down the ICW when the clutch mechanism broke down. There wasn’t a service rep cruising by on a nearby boat, so I anchored and took a closer look. Since the owner’s manual doesn’t want you to open the unit up, it doesn’t tell you how. You have to figure it out for
The belt-adjusting cam (adjustment “screw” accessed on other side) is to the right of the gear. To the left of the gear is the clutch.
yourself. It took some gentle forcing to realize that the black plastic wheel separates in two by just sticking a flat screwdriver in between the two pieces and snapping them apart. (They easily snap back together.) I thought maybe Autohelm didn’t want you to know how easy it was to get
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www.rparts.com 36 February 2007
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