The really important part was the drawings he posted at the end. I ended up using dental floss to tie the seal up. At first I thought that I could just tie it in the center and get the seal into it's groove. Not a chance. I kept trying to do it my way and it just didn't work. My wife started helping and she took a look at the drawings and said that we needed to do it the way the drawings showed. Thankfully, I listened to her!
It took several tries and I almost gave up because the only way that seal was going into it's groove was by twisting it into a pretzel like the drawing. Finally the seal was in it's groove and all looked well. Then came the next hurdle that I hadn't read about.
The size of the seal was exactly what I needed but the piston rod just didn't want to pass through it during reassembly. I tried and tried but that rod wasn't going through the rod seal. I thought that maybe Metric Seals, Inc. had pulled the wrong seal out of the bin even though the ziplock bag had the proper label of the correct seal that I ordered. In any case, there was no way that I could get that piston rod through the seal. Yes, I oiled it up with power steering fluid.
At this point I was very frustrated and was ready to throw in the towel and order an overpriced VP replacement. I figured if mine was junk, I might as well do what it took to get the rod inserted through that seal even if I destroyed the actuator. I set the actuator body and piston rod assembly into my hydraulic press and slowly applied pressure. The rod popped through the seal! However, there was no way I was pushing/pulling that rod through by hand. I had to use the press to send the rod through further. It didn't seem right to me but what the heck? I was going to buy a new unit anyway, right?
Got the actuator all put back together and installation back into the boat was about the smoothest part of the whole job. I added power steering fluid to the pump and then started to turn the steering wheel to see if I could get that piston/rod assembly to move through that tight Metric Seals, Inc. rod seal. It moved and I started to bleed the system of air! Eventually, all the air was out and I started the engine and continued to turn the wheel with power steering assistance. I got a couple of weird "burps" of air but once they were gone, the steering was as good as new and there was no more leaking!
I've had the boat out twice since the repair and the power steering is working perfectly and there is no fluid leak. It was a pretty big job and by God's favor, it all turned out successfully. Good luck to you if you need to do the same rebuild. It can be done.
Oh, one last thing. I ended up reusing my old, outer wiper seal. The new one that I ordered (less than $5) was too wide/thick. It wouldn't stay in place without "gluing" it in. My old wiper seal was in good shape so I popped it back into place. Even with the $10 shipping charge for these two seals, my total monetary cost was just over $27 to fix this leaking steering actuator.
:mad-new: !
