Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

[snowbrd84]

Force 90 Outboard on 17' Bayliner Capri. Trying to tackle a bunch of issues with this boat. It is very difficult to turn steering wheel in or out of the water. After reading up online, thought it was be the rack and pinion steering cable. Disconnected the cable from the tiller rod tonight and went to turn the steering wheel, to my amazement, steering wheel turned smooth as butter to the left and right... got out of the boat and with the motor trimmed all the way down, the motor is very difficult to rotate in either direction.

I see there are grease fittings, guessing the guy before me never greased anything by the way he treated the rest of the boat. Aside from needing grease, (what kind of grease by the way?) what else could it be?

 

[Frank Acampora]

Re: Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

You can try pumping it full of grease and even possibly heating it a bit to make the new grease penetrate farther in. However, frequently new grease simply won't solve the problem. If that is the case, you have no choice but to disassemble the pivot yoke and kingpin. Then you must sand off the corrosion and regrease before reassembling. Big job, not fun, and a winter project.

 

[snowbrd84]

Re: Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

Well Im gonna try greasing it tonight, I will heat it up first with the heat gun. See what happens. If not, guess im gonna end up picking up an engine crane (needed one anyways) and pull the outboard off.

 

[jerryjerry05]

Re: Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

Use a small propane torch.
Then heat the heck out of it.
Just pumping it with grease will pop the fittings out.
There are 2 plastic seals/bushings on the pivot pin.
You can melt these if it gets to hot.
Then you will be disasembling the whole thing.

 

[snowbrd84]

Re: Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

Well it turns out the mid section grease fitting was missing. I ended up re tapping the fitting and putting a new one in. Then added a grease fitting towards the bottom, and another on the other side towards the top. Heated with a propane torch and got the grease to pump through. So now it turns easier, but it is still kind of tight. How loose/tight should the steering be? Should it be like turning a car steering wheel with power steering, or should it be more like an old truck without power steering?

 

[jerryjerry05]

Re: Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

Should be fairly easy to move without the steering hooked up.
Do the grease thing again.
I used compressed air to try to blow out and old grease when I had the zerts out.
Then I added 30wt oil and then heat and moved it.
PB Blaster or WD any thing to cut the grease and move it around.
Might take a couple of time to make it easier.
I worked for 3-4 hours on my port motor.
20 min.on the stbd one.
I use a marine white lithium on the kingpin area.
Seems to be a bit thinner???

 

[RRitt]

Re: Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

i had a pair of saltwater 85's stiffen up. without cable attached they were extremely hard to turn by hand. complete teardown and build-back with solid aluminum kingpin. might have gone SS if it was bigger HP. Internet metal supplier made them to order for $18ea. Turns out it is just a chunk of industrial rod cut to length. The fiber washers were very difficult to find. I can't remeber where I finally got them from. Grainger? McMaster? Industrial Hydraulic Supply?

after finished and mounted back on boat - before cables attached - could turn the engines with my pinky. Only significant resistance was the viscousity of lubricant. Once turning started slowly it would glide to a stop on its own.

 

[snowbrd84]

Re: Hard to turn Force outboard even w/ Steering cable disconnected

Yeah I would love to just pull the motor and replace the king pin, but I don't have any means by which to lift the motor off... It's in my driveway, so I worked on it more yesterday. Got it loosened up so that it is unbelievably better, but it is still stiff. I probably melted those plastic bushings heating it up with the propane torch.

One thing that did help a lot, I realized that when you are turning the motor side to side, the king pin is only rotating about 90 degrees. So when I was heating and pumping grease, the back side of it wasnt really getting any of the benefit. So I turned the motor all the way counter clockwise and loosened one side of the lower kingpin cover/clamp, this released tension on the kingpin, and allowed me to rotate the motor clockwise without the kingpin rotating (and it was so loose i could have moved it with my pinky finger, so I know 100% the kingpin is the culprit). I then tightened it back up and rotated it counter clockwise again. I then repeated the heat and grease process. I noticed it did got a little looser. I repeated this process 3 more times, so that the king pin had been completely rotated around in the swivel bracket... This helped a lot, but as I said before, it still takes too much effort to turn the wheel. It is at least better so that I can drive it a few more weekends and then maybe i can tear it apart this winter.