So I'm back at it again. New boat, researching how to pull a steering pin out of a gimbal housing. Trying to remember the disasembly/install procedure - and my own thread comes up as one of the most helpful. So I thought I would follow up on it. Yes it's a 6 year old thread, but it's mine and related so get over it
So this time I buy a much newer boat - a 2008 with twins. When looking at the boat, there is water in the bilge and the steering pin is pretty badly rusted. Out of all people you would think I would know what that means and would steer clear! Nope, I buy for quite a lot of money. And after 1 year of constant water in the bilge I've had enough.
I will give one tip that I tried this time which really helped. To find the source of the leak we shop vac'd all the water out of the bilge - bone dry. Then I picked up a cheap borroscope camera on amazon and found the drip coming off the bottom of the Y-pipe. Still not easy to determine root cause. I would have a drip every 5 seconds continuously. Then I took a paper towel, folded it up and dried up the water under the steering arm. After it was dry, I took a 2nd paper towel, folded it up and left it between the steering arm and top of gimbal housing. Within 60 seconds the paper towel was drenched. During the 60 seconds, my borroscope showed the drip stop. As soon as the paper towel was saturated the leak started again. So my suggestion is to use a paper towel to determine if your steering pin is leaking. You don't necessarily even have to watch for a drip, just see if the paper towel is wet after initially drying the area up.
Now how is it that a 10 year old boat (in salt) has two transoms leaking! While I thought about it last time, I have learned my lesson good this time. No more Mercruiser. I hate to say it since I'm so familiar with the design and now have quite some experience, but it's just a terrible design. The fact that Mercury uses a steel pin that costs $393 when they have a stainless pin that costs $406 - that's $13 more! But that's exclusive to their Seacore which no one uses. After this terrible design, you think they would accept a $13 increase in manufacturing cost for a part that is near impossible to get out. Any of course outboards just plain don't have these parts due their simpler design. I hope I learn my lesson for next boat.
Ok enough of my rant. Here's what I'm doing. I pulled engines, transom assembly off. I went in expecting to have a terrible time pulling the pin out again. Instead the top nut was incredibly difficult to get off. I was wacking the end of the 1-1/16" wrench with a 5 lb hammer, wouldn't budge. Eventually ended up putting a puller between the wrench and the steering arm (with it still clamped tight). That moved it!
The next thing I did was to pull the bushing out. Technically I never did this before since it was at this point I realized my last housing was junk. So I pulled the seal out on the bottom of the bushing with a flat head screwdriver. Then based on what I read, I found a socket and started bashing the bushing upwards with a hammer. Wasn't moving. I could tell I was mangling the bushing and/or the housing. Eventually I took a punch and hit it. Once I got to the 3 or 9 oclock position the bushing just split apart and came loose. The point is the bushing has a seam which is supposed to be installed at 3 or 9 oclock position. DO NOT USE A SOCKET! Get a sharp punch and just hit at the side to split the bushing. I near ruined the housing on the 1st one. The 2nd one came out beautifully.
After the bushing was out I could see some pretty bad corrosion at the top of the bushing. I started picking at it with a screwdriver and ate through a little of the housing where the seal sits. Because of this, I am not 100% confident the seal will be 100% water tight. It probably would be, but for the work and cost of pulling the engines, transom assembly out I decided its not worth it. Unfortunately the rest of the housing was perfect shape, just the area around the seal and bushing.
I don't understand how everyone is using the JR kit to replace the steering pin. I'm now 0 for 3 and need to replace the housing every time.