I have around 4 inches of play in my steering it's a single worm type cable I can't find any way of adjusting it has any one any ideas my boat is a 22 ft wide beam circa 1981
It would be almost impossible for a Teleflex type cable to have so much slack unless the spiral spring has broken OR the woodruff key has somehow come out from the steering boss and the wheel is rotating on the shaft OR the ali worm-drive rack has lost a load of teeth.
My guess would be a rack failure, you don't say what 22ft wide-beam boat you have so I don't know what type of steering you have but I would assume it is the type with a circular rack into which the cable coils sit. This puts quite a lot of stress on the cable inner and they are prone to part there.
If you are a tight-wad like me you can extract the cable and it's broken part, cut the longer piece in half and get it gas-welded back together with the broken bit now welded into the middle. You now have a nice new end to wrap around the rack giving you another 20 odd years of service.
You can thank Hobbs of Henley for inventing that little bodge-up on their hire fleet. Well, they might not have invented it but they use it and I copied from them probably 40 years ago. Cables are expensive!
However - if the rack has lost teeth you are stuffed - buy a new steering system complete, you have no other choice as s/hand ones are like hens-teeth and are an unknown quantity anyway.
And if the cable has worn the teeth (highly likely) the teeth will wear a new cable to the same state as the old one in no time, bite the bullet and buy a new helm gear and cable, they last that long that it's not worth replacing one without doing the other and they are not that expensive. It's like chain & sprockets on a bike, you can replace seperately but only idiots do it like that.
Play in steering
Posted - 01 Aug 2016 : 17:05:38
