Having read here that a few people were able to get the wheel off this way, I skipped it too at first. I pulled and pulled, and hit the shaft many times (probably a lot harder than I should have). It would not come off, despite trying this for about 45 minutes. It was even a bit of a struggle with the gear puller. I don't think there's any way mine would have come off without the puller.Duane Dunn, Allegro wrote:He said to skip the wheel puller. He had me unscrew the nut a few turns but leave it on so it still covered all the thread at the end. The get a good pull going top and bottom (not twisting, brace your feet on the pedestal so you are not pulling on it's mounting on the floor. Give a few good raps with a hammer on the nut/shaft end, and bingo, poped right off.
That's not completely accurate. While it does primarily use the CTE info, it DOES need an accurate heading reference to know which way to turn when initially heading to a waypoint. But, if you do the "which way is north" procedure, all will be well.I also asked about compass location. He suggested back on the footwell contour in the aft berth, or on older boats like mine, the back face of the step hump. I said, aren't they suppose to face forward? He says it really doesn't matter which way it faces as long as it is vertical. Makes sense, who cares which way it thinks is north. You point it where you want to go and it holds that course, what internal heading it is doesn't matter. He also says that when you tell it to navigate to a waypoint it doesn't even use the compass. Is steers exclusively by the cross track error information in the NEMA data stream.
I've started shopping at the Boaters World as much as possible now, because their prices are, in most cases, significantly better than West Marine. Their selection (at least at the store here) is not quite as good though.I bought mine at West Marine. They want $899 for the Sport Pilot Plus Mechanical Steering in their catalog. Boaters World has it in their catolog for $799. The moaned and groaned, said it couldn't be the same thing, but when they called around to get the exact Raymarine part numbers to check they found it was and matched the Boaters World price.
--Mike
The previous owner said he had never used it in 3 years (not sure if I believed that one though) and it was frozen when I bought it. So, the first thing I did was to send it for an overhaul to RayMarine...About $250 and 3 weeks later, and it was as good as new...they even replaced the old case which was seriously sun faded...obviously, the previous owner never kept it under cover and it faded as well as the control stalk rotting off almost completely. Needless to say, the second thing I did was have a custom helm cover made for her...
