omc steering tight

[bellinghamster]

newbies to outdrives-in january my husband i bought an older apollo titan w/chev 350 and omc outdrive (poss 800 series?).

the guy we bought the boat from kept it in a boathouse, said it motored just fine to the ramp when they pulled it out. we did the usual (tune-up, oil change, etc) before taking it out for the first time friday.

the steering wheel is extremely hard to turn, and turns harder to the right than it does to the left, and it's "grabby," too. my husband insists the cables got some corrosion in them while sitting for 4 months, but to me it feels like an older car when you set the bearing preload too tight on the steering gear.
he sprayed kroil down the sheath/housing but it still feels the same.

any suggestions. please???

 

[WizeOne]

Re: omc steering tight

You failed to mention the year of the boat (beyond older). Can I assume that your 800 drive uses the double way cable and drum Tru-course steering?

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

Re: omc steering tight

to me it feels like an older car when you set the bearing preload too tight on the steering gear.

Excellent analogy!

Try greasing the swivel bearing on your outdrive. You need a small size adapter on the end of your grease gun and the fitting is on the front side of the lower unit in a 5/8" diameter hole - may have a red plastic plug in it.

If grease only sort of helps... continue reading.

Unlike any other drive design, only the bottow half of an OMC stringer outdrive steers.
So between the upper and lower, there is some necessary clearance - approx. .020 - .030" and it is adjusted by shimming.

The exhaust housing actually "clamps" the lower unit to the upper.
If the shimming procedure is not done correctly when installing the top cap of the drive, there will be too much clamping force.

There are a lot of "half outdrives" being sold on eBay and other places and during the mixing and matching, many do not realize there are shims in there...or that tolerances are different on various uppers and lowers and shimming must be done at assembly.

Prying on the upper to see if it will "float" up and down a bit will verify the shimming was done correctly.

 

[WizeOne]

Re: omc steering tight

All good suggestions Howard but if they have the TruCourse, I think their problem is in the cable itself. I wanted them to verify what they had before I took the time to outline a proceedure for them.

 

[bellinghamster]

Re: omc steering tight

wow! thanks to all for such quick responses...we are doing our homework to determine whether the boat has a double-way cable and trucourse steering or not...i do know there is a worm gear on the steering column, which has a cable wrapped around it...we will be back as soon as we know for sure what we have...

 

[WizeOne]

Re: omc steering tight

wow! thanks to all for such quick responses...we are doing our homework to determine whether the boat has a double-way cable and trucourse steering or not...i do know there is a worm gear on the steering column, which has a cable wrapped around it...we will be back as soon as we know for sure what we have...

The TruCourse steering not only has the double-way cable, it has a double cable drum at both ends. One at the steering column and one attached to the intermediate housing on the starboard side.

The drum at the intermediate housing end is set screwed to a shaft that exits the intermediate housing, with a gear that meshes with a gear on the outdrive.

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

Re: omc steering tight

neat primer on trucourse with pics here:
http://www.marinemechanic.com/2000/answerman/tru-course.htm

 

[bruce728]

Re: omc steering tight

Could someone go into some more detail about loosening the engin steering colum on a evenrude 70. 1996.