mercury outboard steering linkage breaking

I have a 1978 Kona ski boat with a 1978 Mercury 2-cycle v-6 1500 V outboard engine on it. (serial #4967723)

When I tilt the engine all the way up I break/bend the steering arm on the engine.
It is an L-shaped bracket that connects under the engine and goes to a bracket connected to the push/pull cables.

I am guessing I have the incorrect bracket for this engine.

Every time I go to put the boat in the water, or pull it out, I have to disconnect the steering linkage from the push/pull cable assembly to be able to tilt the engine up.

If the bracket gets bent, it it impossible to steer the boat, I am wrenching with all my might to turn the steering wheel.

This is very annoying and I would like to find a remedy to the problem.

The last boat shop I took it to offered to install hydraulic steering, but that was not an option because of the price.

I would like to find the cheapest solution to this problem without spending thousands of dollars I don't have.

I'll attach 2 pictures.
One pic is of the steering bracket, I'm holding it up right where it connects to the push/pull cable assembly.

second pic is of the old steering bracket that got bent. You can see it got bent ight at the end where the nut threads onto the bottom of the bracket, at the push/pull cable assembly side. Just that slight bend made the steering basically impossible to turn.

Re: mercury outboard steering linkage breaking

That looks like the steering link I have on my single steering cable system. The steering cable will rotate as the motor tilts so there is no damage. Not sure what you need for dual steering cable set up.

Re: mercury outboard steering linkage breaking

Chris1956, it looks like you are correct.

I found a picture of my style steering bracket attached to a single cable steering set up.

Dose anyone know if there is a correct bracket for my dual steering (push/pull) cable steering style set up?

Dose anyone know what the correct terminology is for my steering, dual cable, push/pull, ect. That might help in my google searching?

Maybe I should just start a new thread asking about the correct linkage since it looks like mine was was put together with mis-matched parts....


Here is a pic I found with my style bracket with Chris1956's single cable steering setup. It does look like that would work, but I don't have a single cable set-up.