After being without a boat for the last 4 years, I will be getting back on the water. A friend of mine is selling me his 1999 SeaHunt Center conole with a 1999 Johnson 115 PLEEM two stroke. The boat and engine are spotless except for some minor work that is needed on the trailer. One of my areas of concern is on the engine steering arm assembly. It is rusting pretty badly. I have done some searching on the forums on the intertnet as well as a few on the Iboats site and have found only a small amount of info on the subject. From what I have gatherded it can be a very laborious job to replace this steering arm. I noticed when inspecting the engine that there is quite a bit of rust on the under cowling side of the arm where it mounts to the powerhead.I am pretty sure I can knock some of that rust off and abate it. The otehr side of the arm where the steering linkage mounts seems to be fairly sound yet it is slowly rusting to the point where I know if will be a definite issue in the next few years. I am going to talk to a friend of mine who is a welder by trade and I trust to do the work. I am wondering if it would be a decent Idea totreat the rusty arm and just weld together a tight sleeve that would slide of the rusted portions of the arm and then drill a hoel throught the sleeve to mount the linkage back in place. i am going to clean it up as much as possible and post some before and after picks to get everyones opinions before I decide on a solution. I just want to make sure that the arm is safe enough to operate the boat at WOT.
