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tkcas01

Roaming Fulltimer

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Joined: 10/11/2005

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Good Sam RV Club Member

Posted: 08/25/12 03:48pm

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Last year the power cord reel (Shoreline RV 5036) on my rig gave out - it sounded like it stripped a gear or something. The motor would still engage, just nothing would happen. I contacted the manufacturer to see if they had any replacement parts, but was told that model was obsolete and there were none - it would have to be replaced.

I was very disappointed that the solution to what seemed a simple problem was to throw this whole unit away and buy a new one. I decided if I had to do that, I was going with their competition - the Glendinning CRR-50. But at $600, I was not in a hurry!

I procrastinated a year and finally started considering the replacement again. With great luck I stumbled upon this FMCA forum post where others were having a similar issue. Embedded in that thread you will find a post from user "BackhoeJ" whose son with a CNC shop made some replacement gears.

I contacted him and was able to get replacement parts from him. While procrastinating on this job ended up saving me hundreds of dollars, the delay was partly due to not knowing what I was up against. So to help others, I thought I'd document my repair here - it really was so easy!

As you can see, my reel is very accessible in a side bay. Still, there really wasn't enough room to the right to get in there to drill out rivets. I decided to go ahead and remove the unit.

[image]

First, I turned off the breaker at the power pedestal and unplugged the power cord just for added safety. To make the reel lighter, I unwound all the cord. I then loosened or removed the 4 bolts holding the unit to the ceiling of the compartment. Note some of the bolts may be in slots, not holes, so you just need to loosen them, not remove. This will make remounting the unit easier.

[image]

I stacked up some boards under the unit to support it once I got it dismounted from the ceiling. I then drilled out the 6 rivets on either side of the gearbox. I had to use a punch to drive them clear of the frame so I could pull the gearbox away from the unit.

[image]

As I pulled the gearbox away from the unit, one of my fears was it would cause the whole thing to fall apart. As you can see it did not - it stayed otherwise intact.

[image]

Here is what the gearbox looks like on the inside. I then drilled out the rivets holding the gold bracket in place.

[image]

Sure enough, the problem was just this tiny gear that had broken. I again used the punch to fully remove the remnants of the rivets. I noticed that one of the shafts holding the larger gears appeared bent, so I used pliers to straighten it and made sure that the gear would spin true.

[image]

Now for reassembly. Without the gold bracket in place, the shaft in the reel is off-center, so the first step is to put the bracket in place. Inside the hub of the reel there is a plastic "key" that must align with the slot on the gold bracket.

[image]

Position the bracket appropriately and slide it all the way against the hub.

[image]

Now mount the new gear on the shaft. For me the fit was very tight and I had to use a small hammer to tap it on. You want the outside of the gear to be flush with the end of the shaft. There was some spare grease on the hub, so I spread some of that around the teeth of the new gear.

[image]

I then put the larger gears in place, thinking it would be easier to blindly line up the two shafts with the holes in the gears, rather than lining up the gears themselves once I put the gearbox into position. This seemed to work out pretty well.

[image]

I then first riveted the gearbox to the gold bracket, making sure to hold the gearbox firmly against the rest of the assembly. Be sure to use the shorter rivets for that.

[image]

I then riveted the frame to the gearbox, again making sure to hold everything tightly together for a solid mount. With the assembly back together, I lifted it up and slid it onto the single bolt still in the ceiling, then propped it up with wood blocks while I inserted the remaining bolts and tightened it up. I reeled in the spare cord I had unwound earlier and plugged back into power.

Now, hopefully good as new, if not better! The new gear was cut out of solid material while I was told the original was cast - making it more brittle. Somewhat surprising they had such a small gear driving this thing. Clearly the weak link.

[image]

In the end, I bet I did not even spend a full hour working on it, and much of that was spent making it up as I went along!

Thanks again to BackhoeJ and his son for being a source for the replacement part. I hope others find this useful to also save a few hundred bucks.

* This post was last edited 08/25/12 10:28pm by tkcas01 * View edit history

Roaming Full Timer