Autopilot malfunctioning and repair - 2023

 We spoke to Garmin tech support last Friday to review our error message and what we have done so far. The tech advised that the GHC 10 is not communicating with the CCU | Garmin . (Course Computer Unit or to us flux gate compus) So he gave us four steps to follow to troubleshoot/repair the problem.May 2023 - Chip & Debbie 💑 Currently in Marina Costa Baja in La Paz, Mexico

#1 Re-do the yellow signal wire

#2 @ECU, check the power cable (ECU is grey box w/four cables into it - power, drive power, rudder feedback, interconnect to CCU. CCU has the flux gate compass and is the "brains" & controls

#3 Interconnect cable from ECU to CCU

#4 Check 40amp fuse

Debbie climbed in and checked the yellow signal wire connection; it was sound. She traced it back to under the nav station where it was connected to the cable from the CCU; it was sound. Checked the 40amp fuse (again); it was good.

We discussed what it would take to do #3 - take out propane box so ECU could be visualized easier and proceed from there. We decided this isn't something we wanted to spend our time and effort on right now, with the summer decommissioning looming. We also discussed that the symptom seemed to be a loose connection because the last time we attempted to fix it, it worked for a bit then when everything was put back together, it didn't.

So, Debbie climbed back into the lazarette to check the connection of the cables on the backbone. And sure enough, something was amiss with the O-rings on the GHC10 cable and the yellow power cable. There was none on one and a broken one on the other. We checked our supplies in storage and found a replacement. Once those were seated properly, the cables were reinstalled (with a bit of dielectric grease). We turned on the power switch and Wala! we have the autopilot working again. She secured all the wires/cables again, checking periodically to make sure it still worked and it still did!

Nice that is done so we didn't have that looming over our heads this summer!! Now, on to the decommissioning list...

 The passages we did without the autopilot!