Jefa autopilot drive maintenance and repair hints

Important maintenance and repair tips for Jefa Autopilot drive unit.

I hope you will not be as unfortunate as me sailing from the Netherlands to the Shetlands with a force 7 in the back, suddenly getting a gybe together with a “rudder feedback missing” message on the plotter.  We were about halfway in the middle of North Sea with the closest refugee harbour Aberdeen at 120 nm.

So we went there steering by hand and we got as a free extra a tough lightning storm on top of it.

Arriving in Aberdeen after a good night rest we found out that the fuse hidden in the cable assembly at the autopilot drive motor was gone.  We replaced the 15A fuse and all worked fine again, but something based on my 40 years carrier in electronics told me this would not be it as fuses do not tend to give up without a reason.

So we left Aberdeen the next morning only to find out that after 5nm the fuse gave up again.  Still in range of cell phone I decided to order a spare drive motor at Jefa Denmark and have it shipped to Shetlands as I suspected the carbons of the motor being the culprit.

As a side mark do not order anything from Jefa.  The combination of a Polish sales woman more interested in her vacation than the business and a warehouse shipping manager from India are recipe for disaster.  They managed to send me the wrong parts the most expensive way to arrive weeks after we already left Lerwick…  Check the ratings of Jefa on Google, they are hilarious, I am not the only one having serious issues with them.

So we ended up ordering a full new drive unit value 3000 Euros with Boon in the Netherlands that was perfectly in time shipped to Norway our next stop.

Returning home I was very determined to find out what caused the failure on my 2008 Hanse Jefa drive unit and the results were very interesting.

The problem was caused by increased friction in several bearings that suffered from water ingress.

The maintenance manual of Hanse should recommend the replacement of the top seal on the axial output of the drive every 2-4 years to prevent water ingress.  This should have prevented all issues and the costly repair.  

I took apart and replaced all bearings as almost 50% of them showed signs of water ingress.   I did not buy them at Jefa but at a place specialized in bearings.  Some are exotic and quite expensive.  For those interested I can supply a full set including the seals for 300 euros plus shipment.

The repair/replacement is not an easy job as you have to take apart the full unit.  First the bolts are very difficult to remove, you need a special hammer screwdriver.  To disassemble the unit you need special pullies and custom made tools.   If you do not have really good mechanical skills do not even think about dismantling this thing as you can damage key components you can only supply from Jefa (and I wish you good luck with that).  Being a specialist now you can always contact me to refurbish your unit if you want to.  I can also supply the special seals to replace regularly if you do not want to end up in the trouble I as in at high seas.

Pedro Wyns, January 2026

Pedro.wyns@gmail.com