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Where to order a steering cable?

1973 Browning Marine

Regular Contributor
A friend of mine recently purchased a 1984 Boston Whaler Newport with a 70 horse Johnson outboard engine. The boat sat for two years and the steering cable froze up at the pivot point at top of transom inner mount. We were finally able to remove cable. We tried to free it up by removing engine and in order to have enough room to remove it from mount. Cable broke! Anyway, we took the numbers off of the old Teleflex cable and the number is as follows: 15-5ft SSC7275 J83. I looked on the Teleflex pdf file and think I found the right one but have tried several sources online and I am not able to get a hit. More info: The engine is a 70 horse Johnson serial #J7132054 and the model is J70TLCDC. The rotary steering seems to be fine and used helm to remove the broken section out of casing. Question: Where to buy?, Who do I talk to? One last thing, on the Teleflex site, I entered the parts pdf file and I think I found the right cable #SSC72XX. I think it read "old style cable" and TS. The problem I am having is that when I try and enter the number, I keep getting no matches found! Maybe a special order part? Any info. or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Tom
 
Thanks Chris and kimcrwbr1 for the quick response. I tried several other sites last night and struck out! lol Anyway, thanks again and I will do as you said and go to West marine for the helm kit. later, Tom
 
kimcrwbr1, It is not real tight but the guy is redoing his dashboard and wants to move the wheel about 6-8 inches to the starboard side. He has a mahogany bench seat that goes the complete width of inner beam to gunwhales on both sides. The cable goes almost straight down from where the wheel was originally located and into a factory hole in the floor along with other controls, etc. I told him that everything will change if you move the wheel but he is pretty set on doing it so what the heck can I do? lol Anyway, the cable casing has two nuts, one that screws into the old actual rotary helm and one that screw into a pivot tube which is actually the main hinge point on the outboard engine. We measure the casing from threaded nut to threaded nut and came up with exactly 14 feet. I know, I know that I will have to add another foot rounding up to the nearest foot so I figure if he moves it eight inches he should be able to make a 15 foot cable work. I called West Marine and the guy also struck out at first then told me that the old part number was superseded or changed to cable steer QC216 and ssc6116. I understand that part ok but am getting confused about the original markings on the cable which reads 15-5ft ssc7275 J83. Like I said, I measured the cable casing from nut to nut and came up with fourteen feet exactly. Doesn't the 15-5ft indicate a cable length of 15 feet 5 inches? Or maybe 15 and a half feet? Just doesn't make sense but that is what I removed from the boat. I am hoping that someone did not have the cable shortened from it's original length. I understand that custom lengths would be a special order but like I said a 15 foot casing should work if he moves over eight inches because we would end up with 14 feet eight inches rounding up to the nearest foot bringing our measurement to 15 feet. Right or wrong? I talked him into ordering a kit with both helm and cable just to make it easier but am still not sure at this point which one to use for his 1986 70 horsepower Johnson outboard with a rotary steering system. As long as it is rotary steering and it will work on his outboard I would be happy to get anything at this point. Any extra advice would be greatly appreciated at this point. What a proper pain in the arse! lmao! See what I got myself into! lol Nothing is ever straight forward or simple. later, Tom
 
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