Navigator is slow

[tagprod]

My navigator doesn't seem to be moving as swiftly as it used to. This will it's 3rd summer coming up. I added an extra link of hose and the range seemed to get a little better, but it sure does crawl around at a snails pace. I've taken it apart and looked at the internals and everything seems to be working ok. The pads look ok too - no excessive wear. Just wondering if there is any other maintenance issues I could check to improve perfromance.

 

[subslug]

Have the pressures changed any on your filters in the three years since you've started using the Hayward? If you have higher filter pressures than what you did have then, the Hayward won't have as much suction and therefore not move as fast. I think they sell the Haywards with the gauge to connect to your hose and determine suction pressure, you might need to valve off the drain or maybe one of the other skimmers to increase pressure to the skimmer with the Hayward.

Another thing to check for is slack in the feet of the Hayward, the part the pads plug into. See if there's a lot of play or slack in the foot portion of your Hayward. You can try popping the plug that covers the foot screws out and tightening those screws but, if you get play you might need to replace some of the parts to actually fix the problem.

I have several pools to maintain, all used the Haywards when I started and little by little I've gone to Vacuums with less moving parts to go out. The parts for these Navigators aren't cheap and IMO they don't last long enough. Of course we use ours to death so keep that in mind. I have a couple Haywards in use right now that have been rebuilt and still aren't as efficient as they should be. I've gone as far as totally rebuilding and replacing every part on a Hayward and it still wouldn't move.

 

[subslug]

Another thing to check on the Navigator is the four bearings that are in the unit. You say you checked and everything looked okay but did you actually put hands on the four bearings inside the unit?
They could still look fine but may not really be fine.

Flip it over and take the cover with one screw on it off and inspect the bearings and turbine as closely as possible.
I've found that something as tiny as a speck of Zeosand in the bearing will cause the Hayward to not move.

 

[skinnydipper]

On my pool there is something under the skimmer basket, not sure exactly what it's called, but moving it will give the skimmer less suction and the hole you plug the navigator into more suction. Also, on my navigator there's a dial on it that says I, II, III that has something to do with it also. It's been a while since I had navigator troubles, so excuse my ignorant sounding post. I just wanted to throw out the things I remember reading in the manual when I was working on the problem. After having no luck dilly-dallying with all the doohickies, I called the pool builder and they sent someone out since it was under warranty. Yours is still under warranty, isn't it?

 

[tagprod]

On my pool there is something under the skimmer basket, not sure exactly what it's called, but moving it will give the skimmer less suction and the hole you plug the navigator into more suction. Also, on my navigator there's a dial on it that says I, II, III that has something to do with it also. It's been a while since I had navigator troubles, so excuse my ignorant sounding post. I just wanted to throw out the things I remember reading in the manual when I was working on the problem. After having no luck dilly-dallying with all the doohickies, I called the pool builder and they sent someone out since it was under warranty. Yours is still under warranty, isn't it?

doohickie? Is that an industry term? :-D Yes it is under warranty so I may give them a call if all the fine suggestions don't yield results. Thanks for the input.

 

[tagprod]

I think I FINALLY got it figured out. The two rings with ball bearings packed inside that slide over the end of the turbine were at fault - well one of them was at fault. I went and bout a new pair and replaced them both. Is there any way to repair those without buying a new one? I tried but after a couple of hours I gave up.