The stern thruster on my 2010 R25 has failed several times since I adopted her 2 years ago. Each time, the shear pin seemed to be at fault.
I contacted both Ranger and Side Power and, I'm afraid, made kind of a pain of myself since the weak link in the Side Power chain seemed to be the shear pin - a $8 item - with a 4 hour or so (I'm 72 and not very limber) repair time.
One time I was successful in paying Side Power to do the repair- their parting words, "never again" give me some thought. What do I do the next time.
Well, the next time came about a month ago when the Stern Thruster failed again.
This time the Side Power folks offered an "unbreakable" shear pin - made from a roller pin - for the $same money. I bought several.
Now the story starts.
First, I had to gain access to the thruster - I followed every instruction except the removal of the exhaust hoses. I'm scared of tampering and reusing the exhaust hose because the "penalty" for a leaking hose is death. So, I removed both doors to the compartment under the fish box and removed the fish box itself. Then I cut the 2" fiberglass post between the two doors. I also removed the cockpit drain hose that goes thru the thru hull just above the thruster.
Once I had access, I was unable to unbolt the thruster motor with the hex tool I obtained from Ranger. If you don't have one, no problem, it is actually easy to reach this part with an allen wrench.
After removing the motor, I was able to remove two hex head machine screws and remove the drive leg. It took some prying from the outside to get it out. In the process, I noticed th propeller was rubbing against the thruster housing, was very hard to turn, and was, in general, shot.
I took the thruster to a workbench and disassembled it. The bearings were shot, the unit was full of salt water, and the gears were gone. Oh well. At least I found out why I was breaking shear pins.!!.
$500 later, I reinstalled the drive leg and it was now easy to spin the prop. Wow, what a difference.
After reinstalling the drive leg, I faced the hard part, reinstalling the motor in a tight space that was to heavy for me to lift - even though the access gained in the first picture let me get both hands into the tight space.
The clew came elsewhere in this blog (forgive me for not crediting the right author). He suggested a band around the motor - and I used a gigantic wire zip tie - about 1/2" wide - around the motor and going straight up out the opening made by removing the fish bait holder. I was able to clamp the tie wrap to a cord and tie that cord to the rail, adjusting the height of the motor so the holes exactly lined up with the tapped holes in the body of the thruster.
I applied lithium grease to the bolts and turned them nearly entirely in with my fingers. No problem. One snug up with the wrench and I was ready to start the reassembly process.
You can probably click on the photos to see a bigger image. The bottom photo has a clear image of the band that lists the motor to make it all possible.
