Mirage Drive GT Upgrade
 

Andy from OEX hooked up the parts, he shipped them and they were here the next day. After covering more water than usual Saturday I decided to put the new GT parts in. Below is a tutorial on the breakdown, cleanup and installation of the new GT parts which consist of roller bearings rather than bushings.
One thing to note before you open up your parts. Do not remove the tape and "ear" plugs from the parts. The needles bearings will fall out, and you will have a mess on your hands. Just use the SS shafts to push out the pugs when putting the parts back together. Grease the "Needle Bearings" with marine grade grease by dropping the "needles out" and dipping in marine grease. Place back in the housing, the grease will hold it in place until you put the shafts in.

1: Remove Cables, Idler and Sprocket. I labeled mine, front, rear and idler.

2: Pull off Peddles from main shaft.

3: Clean main shaft with fine steel wool

4: Remove Peddles from Cam (9/16th)

5: Bolt New GT Cam to existing pedal

6: Remove Idler Pulley, clean shaft with steel wool and install GT Pulley
use hex wrench to back pin out, pull shaft, clean, install reverse order. Remove needles bearings and dip in marine grease. Put back in, the grease will keep it in place.

7: Remove Cotter Pins from turbo fin masts, and slide fins off.

8: Loosen Hex set screw on Main shaft, and push shaft out with screw driver or appropriate tool or said liking.

9: Remove Masts from sprocket with crescent wrench or small open end wrench

10: Line up new GT sprocket, do not remove tape, push in the drive main shaft and allow it to push out the "ear" plug, then remove tape as shaft is pushing the plug out. Do the same for the second shaft. Make sure to line up the flat portion of the drive main shaft (center area) with the hex set screw.
Once the shaft is centered, tighten set screw.

11: Using thread locker put the mast back in the sprockets. Slide on fins and put cotter pins back.

12: Now you are ready to put the cams/pedals back on the main shaft. Remove the plastic ring that is holding the needle bearings in, (it tears off), then line up the main shaft and slide it onto the sprocket. The plastic guide/retainer will back out, keeping the needle bearings in place. Do not allow the sprocket to slide off the main shaft or you will have needle bearings all over the place. Do this to both sides, then use a zip tie to bind them together.

13: Put the idler cable back on first, lining up the fins in the bottom center position. Then put the sprocket cables back on and tighten up.

Now you have an Upgraded GT Mirage drive with needle bearings rather than bushings.

Finished Product
 

The rest of the pictures as I'm limited to 10 pictures per post.

:you_rock:Awesome write up and DIY instruction dude.

Very nice write up. I will be using this in a few days for my drive. :D

Nice write up brother
do you mind if I put a link to it on the forum i'm on in FL?

Thanks

First off thanks for taking the time to post this up!

Augh! after talking to you on the phone I tore one of the factory built ones from a showroom kayak apart and they are using marine grease in conjunction with the roller bearings. On the older ones it was obvious as you could see grease seeping out of the exposed edges, they must be using less as I could not see any at all Sorry, but you need to grease em!

Yes
 

Absolutely, just make sure to include to add marine grease to the bearings. I'm going to update the post to include this.

Update to add marine grease
 

No worries Andy, I need to work on my rebuild times anyways. Do you have any ideas in mind that would allow you to put the grease in without disturbing the needles bearing arrangement?

apply the grease to the axles and slide the pulley, sprockets and drums over the greased axles.

Packing the bearings with marine grease
 

Below is a picture of how to pack the bearings.
Pull out the needle bearings, they feel like carbon rods.
Dip them in marine grease one by one, and stack them against the wall, down to the flange. The grease will keep them in place until you slide the shaft in. The image is of the idler and has three more "needles" to be put in.

I will just send all my rebuilds to you :D

This is great! :luxhello: Thanks!

Built my GT drive today. A couple things that were a PITA were the needle bearings in the sprockets due to their length. I ended up pulling every pin from every bearing to fill will some marine grease. Actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The chains fought me for a bit too. This was my first time doing anything to a mirage drive and I felt it was time to learn what I'm using. Thank you LIPRIPPER for the write up. Followed it and it worked to a tee. And thank you ICEMAN and OEX Sb for the parts. Will follow up once tested on water.

Attachment 14498

I too found the chains to be tricky the first time, and the center cog, a PIA. But here is what I ended up doing.
Fold the chain in half, use a sharpie to mark both sides of that center link.
Put the chain in, and press the marked link on the "square" cog. The square cog is the center one on the sprocket. The rest of the links should easily lay down.
And yes there are a few "needles":D

Thank you. I did notice that the center tooth on sprocket is square. It is easy to tell which link goes in that tooth because there are only 7 total links. The problem I was running into is that the links did not want to seat all the way down on the new sprocket. Once I started to tighten everything back up, it finally pulled the links onto the teeth correctly.

For whatever reason I run into some that are way harder to match the chain up. You guys need to log some time on the water for field testing..............that is an order :D

It looks like you are replacing the sprockets and retaining the old chain? Mechanically speaking, it's usually not a good idea to replace sprockets without new chains to go with it. An old (stretched) chain will cause unusual wear on a new sprocket. A new chain on an old (worn) sprocket will decrease the life of the chain. I'm not sure how much wear is involved in the Hobie parts, but it's something to think about at least.

I agree
 

I agree for the most part. For bikes this is a must as it is metal to metal. But I think on the mirage drive the stretch come from the cable portion and the links don't stretch as they are pulled over a plastic sprocket.

Upgraded to Glide Technology. The difference is night and day, and I drive a PA 14.