Intex Auto Cleaner - Won't reverse, even with new gear box

[dha5447]

First year pool owner here, and one kink I'm trying to work out is the endless task of trying to keep the bottom clean (we have a tree at one end and it's been windy all summer).

I purchased an Intex Auto Cleaner last month. It moves across the pool well and picks stuff up. One problem-- it's supposed to reverse itself, but it never does. It just hits a wall and sits there. I took the gear box apart and it looked clean, and I confirmed that the reversing mechanism should work. But for some reason it didn't. I called Intex, and they sent a new gear box out. I just tried it today, and same issue. It never reverses. Pressure coming out of the unit seems good, and it moves well across the pool. I can manually pick it up and point it a different direction and it does a great job cleaning the pool.

Any idea why on earth it won't reverse? I believe the pump I have is 2100 gph.

 

[dha5447]

Hmm.. I got it to work. I ran a garden hose through the top to see if it was able to switch directions. It did. Put it back in the pool and it works great and reverses correctly. Go figure.

 

[Mdragger88]

I put a little lube on mine & never had another problem.

 

[4000gaAboveGround]

I have the Intex pool cleaner 228001E, and it was not reversing. It's been in service off and on for about 2.5 years. I opened it up and flushed it with a hose, and it turned by hand, but the unit as a whole still would not auto-switch into reverse. I took what I'll call the "T" out again (the switch mechanism, not the gear box) by unscrewing 3 or 4 screws. I used a paint can key (ie: flat head screwdriver) to barely pry the 1 small white gear on it about 1/16 of an inch away from the body of the plastic T and I put dielectric grease (I had in my garage), and I caked the axle behind the gear with way more than needed, and used a toothpick to smear it in as far as I could while turning the gear with my finger. It was hard to turn at first using my fingernail. I turned and greased, and reassembled. Still, didn't work. so then I took the T out a 3rd time, flushed with hose water as hard as I could on the spinner paddles I see inside, and then (what I think did the trick), is I got my air compressor at about 100 psi with the blower attachment, and rocked the inside of it with air until the spinning gears made the whirring noise. I did this for about a minute, changing the orientation of how I was holding the T. Wala, a small explosion of a dirt clog around the inner-side of the gear axel where that paddle spinner is at, and little bits of dirt debris started breaking down and flying out (on the outside of the axle/small white gear spinner is located. I then flushed it with hose water a last time, and the spinner was spinning effortlessly and continuously after one fingernail spin (it would spin 2-3 revolutions now that it was greased and cleared from blockage I couldn't see). I reassembled and it works like a champ! It's fast, changes direction, and did a good pickup of dirt and debris in the pool. I was about to pay another $60-$150 for a replacement, but now I don't need it. While putting it back together I noticed the sticker on the outside that says, "when turning on the pool pump for the first time of the day, allow pool to run for 15 mins prior to hooking up this pool cleaner so that any free-floating debris has a chance to push through the system to keep debris from entering this device" it all clicked into place! I now know that what caused this was 1) running the cleaner on the pool immediately when turning the pump on first time of the day, and 2) I had used the 20 foot white hose to do some manual vaccumming of large particulate with the pool pump on WASTE so that it would straight discharge out of the pool bypassing the sand filter...and there must have been a small rock/dirt clot in the wrinkle of one of the hose partitions that low and behold go pushed into the cleaner and lodged into the spinner-wheels axle inside the T switch mechanism. I hope this information is both informative and encouraging for those who feel confident to do some light maintenance in the event your pool cleaner begins to malfunction as well. Make it a good day.