OMC 800 twin setup.

[Offshoreboat]

Hi,My problem is that when my port engine fals out i have no more p.steering.Boat is hard to steer and afterwords one drive is pointing to stb.<br />other to port.???? How to connect drives with each other,seen connecting bars on some powerboats.<br />My boat:Sea Ray 27 Sundancer twin 3.8 V6 's<br />Thanks

 

[marlinempress]

Re: OMC 800 twin setup.

Well I have a mechanical shift '85 omc 800 and the steering on it is set up so it can't be turned externally, it has a worm gear shaft that goes through the top of the upper gearcase and drives a crescent gear horizontally. So the only way your drive should be turning, if it's the same as mine, is by applying a force to the turning arm thing on the inside of the transom. Connecting a rod between the two as far as my setup goes would just make it so neither of them could turn unless the steering guts were taken out of the dead one. I suppose you could put a connecting rod on both of the steering arms that go into the gearcases behind the engines. But if you have a motor dying on a regular basis, this sounds like it isn't the main problem...

 

[Boomyal]

Re: OMC 800 twin setup.

Marlinempress, the steering you describe is OMC's TruCourse steering. It uses a double cable and drum setup to turn the steering shaft/gear in the starboard side of the intermediate housing. I don't think that a twin setup would have used TruCourse.<br /><br />It probably uses a rack and pinion with a steering rod coming out of the transom and attached to a bracket on the exterior of one of the drives. OMC did have a power steering set up for that type of steering and it would have been powered by only one engine. The second outdrive would have been slaved to the steered outdrive.