Polaris 280, Should the Wheels Easily Spin?

[crosley]

My Polaris 280 is having issues, it's about 5 years old now. Keeps getting stuck, it used to be fine. Made some adjustments, but still has issues.

On some YouTube videos, I noticed people will "spin" one wheel and they all spin freely for a while, like a skateboard wheel.

Mine does not do that, it will basically stop as soon as you let go. But all 3 wheels do turn.

Does this indicate I probably need to rebuild it?

Thanks

 

[rmasonjr]

I have a 280 and it is at least as old as yours.
Last year, I replaced all the wheel bearings. You can find kits on eBay for a full replacement set.
Mine spin freely for maybe a couple of seconds then stop.
Double-check all of the gears and make sure they arent worn-down or broken.

 

[crosley]

I have a 280 and it is at least as old as yours.
Last year, I replaced all the wheel bearings. You can find kits on eBay for a full replacement set.
Mine spin freely for maybe a couple of seconds then stop.
Double-check all of the gears and make sure they arent worn-down or broken.

Thanks for the answer, that was basically what I was worried about.
It stops instantly when you try to "spin" the wheels and let go. I've done some tweaking and several things are going on that seem amiss.

I just decided to rebuild the whole thing and ordered a kit off of Amazon, there's several things that could be going on and I would just rather rebuild the whole thing and start fresh. Tired of pulling it out of the water to troubleshoot.

When these things work, they work great, it just seems like every 5 years or so they need to be rebuilt.

It is annoying that there's probably $10 worth of plastic in that rebuild kit, but still way cheaper than what the local pool store wants for it.

 

[crosley]

Just an update, I rebuilt it (Amazon same day is wonderful) and everything looks to be working properly.

Truthfully, I don't think I needed a full rebuild kit and probably could have gotten by with just a handful of these parts like the wheel bearings and maybe just a new gear set, but was tired of troubleshooting and it was around 5 years old.

Now I just need to fine tune it a bit.

 

[rmasonjr]

Good news! Yeah, when mine finally dies, I'm going with a robot to get rid of the separate booster pump.
Supposedly much less maintenance, too.