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Can only steer one way with a one motor and both ways with another motor.

J

Jfreeman1412

Regular Contributor
Hey guy we recently were fishing in rough waters and found it was hard to turn left. WE were trolling with our port side engine and we had a hard time turning left. I though it was that we were fighting the waves. So we came in right before a storm and couldn't get in to the marina because we couldn't turn left, after a while we were doing circles and got out of the breakwater and took a beating from a 70mph storm. We were lucky to be floating. Got a tow in after the storm and found that the guy who someone had use a coat hanger to connect the the steering chain. We fixed that the right way but still can't turn left with our port side engine only on, if I turn both engines on were fine but if it's just the port side it wont turn left. Also looking in the bottom of the boat where the rudders are controled it doesn't look like the arms are lined up with each other, are they suppose to be? The boat is a 73 F-30
 
With the exception of being toed in a few degrees, the rudders should pretty much be pointing in the same direction. If one is way off, that's probably your issue. Having said that (you probably already know this but...) if all you have running at the time is the port engine, it's normal to have poor left turn steering ability as the port engine wants to turn the bow to the right. Hense when you run both engines, turning left becomes possible because you've evened out port and starboard thrust over both rudders. Same as you'd be hard pressed to turn right if you were running just the starboard engine.....just going by what you've posted. If conditions are fafourable, you can overcome this effect by increasing RPM thus pushing more water past the rudder, this increases manouverability. Providing all hardware is in working order now, I trust this is the issue. The only other thing I can think of is that since a chain is involved, I suspect you also have a pipe that's turned by the chain and connected to a steering box. These steering boxes are pretty robust but they could fail. Hope that helps.
 
Hey guys figures it out. The rudders weren't lined up before we fixed the chain. We straigrened out the rudders and get it too work. Although I still think rudders arent quite in alignment. The dust get in the water to view but the rudder arms are not in the sync. Comes out of the water in a few weeks. WillHave it checked then.
 
Here is how to align rudders, disconnect the tie rod and have someone drive straight ahead at your normal cruising speed, now adjust the length of the tie rod so the clevice pin drops right in, done. You will notice that the rudders aren't perfectly parrallel but now they are riding in the slip stream with no drag.

Dan
 
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