Fix For Aquabot Motor Not Reversing

by Ian

Aquabot Motor Gear Drive

This series of excellent emails is from Ian who correctly diagnosed and cheaply repaired his Aquabot motor. Way to go Ian and thanks for this excellent repair info.

Dear Curt,

I dismantled my Aquabot turbo this morning following your guide, for which I thank you.

As you may be able to make out in picture IMG_2013, the bushing in which holds the shaft for the first driven gear is worn. This means that the first driven gear is not properly aligned relative to the motor pinion. As a result, the motor pinion is somewhat chewed up, as shown in picture IMG_2012. Why on earth did they make these bushings out of nylon instead of something more durable? Anyway, it appears that the bushing has become so worn that the motor pinion no longer properly engages with the first driven gear, hence the problems of no drive in one direction exhibited by my Aquabot. I wish I had a lathe so that I could make a new bushing in brass.

I plan to see if I can get a used motor. Even if the corresponding bushing is worn, I'm hoping I can harvest enough unworn bushings from a spare transmission to make one good transmission. Whether the good transmission will work with the worn motor drive pinion remains to be seen.

I'd welcome any comments or suggestions you may have.
Regards
Ian

I've found a supplier of sintered bronze flanged bushings that exactly match the dimensions of the worn bushings in my Aquabot. They're being shipped UPS ground from NY to CA, so it'll be a while before I can report whether they work or not. Stay tuned.

Dear Curt,

I finally got around to putting those bronze bushings in my aquabot main motor. It turned out to be simply a matter of levering out the plastic bushings and then pressing the bronze bushings in with a C-clamp.

I put it all together, did the bucket test and then a full test in the pool. It ran very nicely. It will be interesting to see how long the new bushings last, and how long the whole thing lasts before something else breaks.

Regards

Ian


I bought the sintered bronze bushings from Stock Drive Products/Sterling Instrument (< >www.sdp-si.com), part no. A 7B 4MF030504. To do a complete re-bushing job, you need three of them at $2.17 each + shipping and handling. I bought a couple of spares just in case I messed something up, but I didn't need them.

I levered the old plastic bushings out with a thin-blade screwdriver and pressed two of the replacement bushings in with a vise. Because of clearance issues, I had to use a C-clamp to press the third one in. It's important that the flange on each bushing seat fully in the frame. This ensures that the bore of each bushing is accurately parallel to the axis of the gear that runs in it so that the gear will rotate freely in the bearing.

Regards

Ian