Permobil M400 issues

[Rustyjames]

Sounds like your problem is with the caster assemblies and not the motors. They each should swivel and spin freely.

[dmccoyks]

That would be great if that is the only issue. When you say they should spin freely, do you mean there should not be any resistance to them spinning?

[dmccoyks]

I am going to go ahead and replace the bearings to start. It looks like there are 2 bearings at each caster for a total of 8 or are there others that should be replaced as well while I am doing it?

[Rustyjames]

Correct, there shouldn't be any resistance in the caster spin, or fork swivel, on each caster assembly.

[dmccoyks]

Okay, there is definitely quite a bit resistance on 3 of the 4 so I will start there. Thanks for all your help!

[Gearhead]

I could not figure out how to jack it up since my jack is pretty tall to test the motors. I will have to wait until my wife gets home with our van with the power lift for further testing on that.


However, a couple things I noticed, 3 out of the 4 casters to not turn very freely. They take a little bit of force. Does that sound like those bearings are bad? Also I can go in reverse and it seems to work pretty good, even turning both ways. Does that make any sense? Thanks again!

IF you have power seat tilt you can use that function as a jack. With foot plates flipped up, tilt seat enough to allow a 4x4 wood to fit under foot rest mount center. Then tilt forward, foot rest mount will contact 4x4 and raise front casters and hopefully center drive wheels (I know it works on FWD). Put another 4x4 under chair frame for safety (as a jack stand). Hopefully you can run motors off the ground to listen to them too.

I had a M300 that casters didn't swivel freely when new. Tech came out and installed some sort of updated washers to caster swivel. They still didn't swivel/pivot freely. A slight swivel drag is needed to reduce caster flutter. Caster wheels should roll freely. If not, check for string, rope, cloth remnants tangled up in wheel axle.

Reminder, if you have a caster wheel dragging so much that you have to compensate with joystick, bad caster should slide (verses roll) on some surfaces.

[dmccoyks]

Thanks for the idea of lifting with the tilt. I will test that out tomorrow. One of the 4 casters will swivel about 1 turn by just giving it good flip. The other 3 will not turn at all when I try to flip and can only be turned by some force to move it around.

I lifted my chair this evening, ran the motors and they both seem to turn the wheels okay as far as I can tell. I also disengaged the motors on each side and rotated each wheel by hand, they both seemed to rotate smoothly, however the left one makes a whining noise while rotating and the right one is quiet. Any thoughts?

[Rustyjames]

It's possible that motor got hurt, but I'd get the caster situation cleared up and go from there. It's not uncommon for a motor/gearbox to have some noise but still be serviceable.

[dmccoyks]

That is my next step to replace them in the next few days when the parts arrive. I was thinking though if it is the bearings then wouldn?t it affect turning both ways and not just to the right side? Also wouldn?t it affect it turning when both ways in reverse.

[Rustyjames]

You mentioning that three of four casters are stiff so there's no telling how it'll act. As far as reverse being better that might be because the bearing could be "unbinding" allowing it to travel easier.