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We will certainly find out!

I'm following this thread just because I admire Trents tenacity ( or obsession, lol).Just wondering have you ever thought of scrapping it, switching to hydraulic and getting a hydraulic autopilot like a Lowrance?. It's an awesome autopilot. Just putting that out there. Good luck on your qwest though,  how you get it figured out. 

I already have everything installed. Just need to fix the spring issue. The last revision seems to still be working for a lot of people who have them so I figured why not. I purchased a new Raymarine Autopilot that I guy had for several years and never installed it so he sold it but it was a hydraulic unit and my best is cable steer so I sold it.
I spent a lot of time trying to find new parts and calling Raymarine numerous times before I finally got to speak with the tech that doesn't nothing but work on autopilots and that was two weeks ago..

Next, I'm disabled and on a fixed income so trying to justify spending $2000.00 plus dollars on something that I can get along with out it but it sure is nice when you have one.

But most importantly to me is the fact that Raymarine built a unit then just ended up sticking a lot of people with a unit that doesn't function properly. No parts no nothing.

After pulling this unit apart its fairly simple so I decided to see if I could fix the problem but the one thing I didn't have and couldn't get were blueprints.

Well, when i found the new wormgear with spring and new clutch assembly i had everything i needed to fix mine but during all this I bought another unit that was supposed to have a good spring but when I got it the unit has the same spring problem so if I have a few springs made I can fix my two units then sell one plus sell the the parts I have plus sell two other autopilots I have.

I also figured if i make new springs that i could sell them to help others and if they need someone to go through their unit then install the new spring and test it i could do that as well.

I will say this, when I first looked at this unit my first thought that came to mind was; why in the hell would someone design something like this! It could have been made very simple and most likely never failed, but if you do that you dont sell new units or replacement parts.

Heck, I could just disconnect the power cord to this unit, remove the locking pin and let the unit turn with the steering wheel and when I'm ready to use the autopilot just put the pin back in and plug the power cord in and turn it on and it will work just fine but that doesn't look very professional in my opinion.

Besides, being disabled I have a lot of time on my hand and this is something I can do.

That's about it in a nut shell

I'm with Trent, and when working it's a good unit that works well. I also don't think it's unfixable. On one hand yes, i get that if it was that easy Raymarine would have fixed it, but I have a feeling that the market for these units was small enough that they just deemed it not worth it. Especially with so much movement in the industry to outboards and joysticks.

I look forward to a new spring being a potential fix, I know gears stripping is another issue that they have, and once I get a couple spare units I'll see if I can get a new set of gears 3D printed.

I may end up being in for more than just one.

One thing to consider is that the wormgear in the older units is different from the new units.

Also, the unit I purchased and found it had the same spring problem as the one I already had was sold to me because he said the wormgear was stripped out.

That ended up not being the case. When I pulled everything apart the screws that hold the drive and worm in place had elongated the holes slightly which allowed the the drive and worm to push away from the wormgear plus the wormgear teeth were packed with some sort of old grease and dirt that became hard. This put excess pressure on the worm and drive assembly.

I will also tell you and everyone else that who ever designed this unit did a very poor job in my opinion. They spring is a torsion spring and torsion springs are made to have pressure applied to actually cause the spring to get smaller or close but this design is made to open the spring to release tension/ grip on the hub of the wormgear but it should really cause the spring to break. All this has been confirmed with the spring manufacturer that I'm working with and using to make new springs.

The main reason for a spring to break in this situation is most likely poor heat treating of the spring.