Polaris 360 - wheels jammed up?

gilbee · May 1, 2015

When we bought our house (about a month ago) the previous owners were so nice to purchase a brand new 360 to replace the old one that was in the pool for us on the way out...we got it going pretty easily since we were able to just base the hose off the old one and it was going quite nice for a while. I've noticed now that, every once in a while the polaris tail will be whipping, but the wheels aren't turning. If I pull the polaris out of the water and gently (sometime a little more than gently) turn the single wheel, it will spring to life and all three wheels will being spinning; I put it back in the water, and it happily goes off to continue running around the pool.

Is something broken inside the gearbox that could be causing this? Keep in mind, this is a system that has only seen a month of use...

gilbee · May 2, 2015

Bump?

jtaves85mcss · May 2, 2015

Check this out.. The advanced search capability in the upper right of the screen is your friend.. http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/13503-Polaris-380-wheels-not-turning

gilbee · May 5, 2015

None of those examples were exactly what was happening to me, but I did find some other results that pointed to grit in the gears as I suspected. Since the unit is so new, I took it to leslies in fear of losing warranty if I cracked it open myself...they not only told me it was A-OK to open it up myself, but that they didn't have a sink deep enough to put the unit to wash out all of the sand that was in the gear area, and basically told me to do it myself. Seems like if you aren't buying, they aren't interested, but maybe I'm being too critical.

jrs_diesel · May 5, 2015

After you clean out whatever is jamming up the gears, make sure you have the screen filter in place on the hose to keep junk out of the 360.

gilbee · May 5, 2015

The screen is in place, and there's an extra filter in between the pump and the return for the Polaris. This is getting into the Polaris by the same route it's getting into the bag---by being sucked up off the floor.

It's actually colored aggregate from the plaster...previous owner let it go waaaaay to long and the plaster is failing/delaminating in some places. A resurfacing is imminent.

jrs_diesel · May 6, 2015

I have similar debris in my pool as well, but that stuff hasn't found it's way into the gears or internals in my 360. Does your 360 have the shield in place over the gears?

gilbee · May 6, 2015

On the single wheel side there is a cover, but not on the double wheel side. Not sure you have similar debris in your pool....the Polaris bag is filled daily with this stuff. Vacuuming helps, but new stuff shows up each day anyway.