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Stiff steering - NOT the cable

A

alan-bc

New member
So, after half a century as a sailor, I bought a real powerboat, an old Boston Whaler with a 2010 Mercury EFI.

I took a chance and bought the boat without ever taking it for a test cruise. And it wasn't even a deal; the price was fair but certainly not cheap.

I'd normally never do this .. spend that much money without a test .. but the Whaler will certainly float and the engine started and ran (in a bucket of water) just great, so that's most of the battle. I figured any other issues were small and I'm pretty handy, so I wasn't worried.

Plus, this was exactly what I was looking for and boats of any sort for sale are very hard to find in my part of the world right now. So I took a chance.

What I didn't look at was the steering, until I got it home. It's STIFF. I disconnected the steering cable and it's fine. But it takes two hands and a firm tug to move the bare motor.

It makes low speed maneuvering a pain and high speed is downright scary. Tug the wheel .. nothing .. tug .. nothing .. tug .. WOAH!

So I removed the grease nipple on the steering pivot and blew in air from my compressor, forcing ugly grease out the top. I noted that there already was a WHOLE lot of grease there already; I assume the previous owner had attempted to fix the problem himself already with a grease gun.

Then I forced some mild degreaser in and out the top a dozen times or so, dried it out with more compressed air and then pumped in my own grease. This was MAYBE better but certainly not good enough.

So the next step is to go whole hog and disassemble it and try and figure out why it's so stiff. Ucky dried out grease is my suspicion.

But this will clearly be a BIG job and I have no idea where to start. Should I buy the factory service manual or will the cheaper Seloc do as well or is there a magic YouTube video I haven't found yet or ... ?

Any thoughts appreciated.


Alan
 
I never saw one on a Merc but years ago I had a small tiller handle operated engine and there was a compression fitting on the pivot for adjusting the friction...right in the middle of the mid section.

Disconnect the linkage at the front of the engine with the remote steering cable connected and see how it turns.....could be corosion in the transom bracket pivot tube....the horizontal one at the front of the engine.
 
Texasmark said:
I never saw one on a Merc but years ago I had a small tiller handle operated engine and there was a compression fitting on the pivot for adjusting the friction...right in the middle of the mid section.

Disconnect the linkage at the front of the engine with the remote steering cable connected and see how it turns.....could be corosion in the transom bracket pivot tube....the horizontal one at the front of the engine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!

Sadly, it's not a tiller model, so no tension adjustment.

And it's not the cable and associated bits, it's clearly the vertical pivot tube .. what I would call the steering stem on a bike.

I've studied, as best I can, what's required to dismantle the pivot and there is a LOT to do. I'm pretty handy and well tooled, but this would be a serious challenge for me. So I think I'll try more a more aggressive degreaser and also heat before the rather drastic dismantle fix.
 
Tilt her up, put heat to the swivel bracket and saddle until the old grease starts to run out, be careful of the boat, then pump fresh grease in until it oozes out both ends
 
haventaclue said:
Tilt her up, put heat to the swivel bracket and saddle until the old grease starts to run out, be careful of the boat, then pump fresh grease in until it oozes out both ends
Click to expand...

What would you suggest for heat? I've seen a suggestion to use a propane torch, but that seems the other side of "sketchy". I was thinking of hot air .. I have an industrial "blow drier" .. but aren't convinced it will actually do anything except peel the paint.
 
the pivot pin and bushing are probably shot, once they go, it is difficult to get grease to go down, and all the grease goes to the top, look closely at the bottom mount and yoke, try and move engine fore and aft by hand, there should be no play there, the bushings are plastic ,I've seen them so bad that the wear out the pivot pin, bottom yoke and pop the snap ring..
 
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