Hobie 180 Mirage Drive - Service and Maintenance

I have a 2019 pa14 with the oval pipes. They are working out just fine and havent had any issues Stays clean and no worries.

Thanks for that info. Any wipeout in the surf zone or anything like that to really put it to the test?

The only issue I had was I found a metal pipe under the high water line and bent one of the shafts. ...

I'd be worried that if it can bend so easily, it can also break. A broken shaft would be a serious hazard on the water, as you could gash your leg. I use solid 6061 crank arms on my GT drive, and the Incredible Hulk could not break those rods...

This is a great how to video: 

Thanks for this link! A few weeks ago, I spent the better part of a Saturday morning going through each step on my mirage drive 180.  There was a minor panic moment as I disassembled the bottom part of the drive that holds like 55 little rods, imagining that I wouldn’t be able to put it back together correctly. But, the video does a great job explaining everything, and using liberal amounts of grease held everything in place, making reassembly easy and straightforward. The result: I know every part of what was a mysterious mechanical contraption, feel confident that I can diagnose and fix issues if they come up, and have a super smooth and quiet drive again.

Question though, echoing BOB above, what grease does everyone use? I ended up using the grease I use on my mountain bike, figuring it would be safe for plastic and might resist water, but I imagine there are better products specific for this type of application (I.e. submerged in salt water for hours at a time).

Not hobie but the Native propel drives call for a white lithium grease, but the gears are sealed in a housing.

A bit of a revive but I wanted to give thanks for the link.

I'm really considering a Compass with 180 and I thought the video was awesome. It's nice to know how simple the system is... I've seen revolvers with more parts!