Change to side steering

[Dave Turner]

Anyone ever change their steering and wheel to the side like stick steering? Reason I ask, it is tight quarters when I want to set up my trolling gear and try to set behind my console. I would like to take out the console and move my steering to the side and open up my seating area. Any thoughts. Thanks

 

[GA_Boater]

Going to move this to the Steering and Controls section for a better chance for answers, Dave.

What boat and set-up do you have now? I've seen some with the trolling/kicker motor with a small wheel on the side and some old wooden Lyman boats used side steering.

 

[Dave Turner]

Thanks...Tracker I owned had stick steering and the cable ran on a wheel. I now have a 16.5 aluminum Spectrum with rack steering. What I would like to do is, take the rack from under the console and fasten it inside of the housing forward of the throttle. The cable should be the right length. I don't need the console and I can run what few electrical switches there are on the side in a compartment. Any thoughts?

 

[GA_Boater]

Other than being confused about which way to turn the wheel to turn in the right direction (that's just me), it should work, Dave. But maybe you need to convert to stick steer like the old tracker. I don't know what your current wheel looks like, but could you mod it to a single spoke with a knob? If the rack is mounted just right to clear everything, you could get a 1/4 turn fore and aft from straight up for fine steering and still be able to go full lock to lock for large steering changes.

 

[aspeck]

I had stick steering on an old Ouachita bass boat. It worked well with a 40hp motor, but when I upgraded to a 55hp there was too much torque on it and it kept breaking ... which is not a fun thing to happen at WOT! I then converted the stick steer to a side mounted steering wheel (used like I was in a wheel chair). This side method with a steering wheel worked fairly well for me. This was 2 boats ago (in the early 80's). Last time I saw the boat, which was about 10 years ago, it was still running the side mounted steering wheel.

 

[Star]

I agree 30 hp would be the most I would use a Stick on. I had a stick on this boat mounted behind the Gale control you see in the picture. It can't be poorly designed, so meone's life may depend on it!!!!