We picked up a ‘69 Commander from some lovey folks who were never able to put it in the water. Good survey as of last year…
Put her in today for (our) maiden voyage with her and our steering was pulling hard to the right. When I tried to correct, something popped and we lost all steering for the rudders. Had a fly bridge which has not been reattached yet. We detached the cables from the bridge to the lower controls.
27 mile trip back on just throttle adjustments.
Has anyone run into this before? Any ideas of what could be the issue? Planning to getting into it tomorrow..hopefully.
Thanks!
Your steering is likely steermaster brand.
One possible cause is that the push pull cable that operates the the mechanical selector that allows you to engage the upper or lower station was not fully engaged or bound up.
Here's a few other possibilities :
-An obstruction like fenders or other stored gear in the lazerette got fouled up in the rudder end .
-The clevis that attaches the steering cable to the rudder has snapped
-The steering cable itself began to freeze from lack of use and snapped internally inside its sheath.
-The gear inside of your rotary helm unit may have broke.
-The rudder end of the cable has been bent (sometimes caused by accidentally stepping on it) which caused one of the above mentioned parts to break.
I'd start with the easy stuff first when diagnosing the problem
Thank you — will do!!
Keep us posted. I had my prop shaft come out of the coupler and go into my rudder breaking my already tired cable and steering. After researching cables and helms I ended up doing some custom machining for adapters in order to take a modern “off the shelf” steering assembly rather than trying to find original. Glad you made it back safely!
I found the issue — user error. Steering lock was uncoupled. I realigned and was able to push the lock level back into place!
Wow 27 miles with just throttles, wow!
So it was the piece in the rudder assembly that slides to connect the upper or lower helm?
I found the bracket just forward of this, where the cables are held so they can push/pull on the rudder assembly, hanging by one screw. Two of the three nuts were sitting in the bilge. This was straight from the dealership, someone forgot to tighten maybe?
I also lost steering on the flybridge twice before I realized I needed to turn the handle to lock it in place! The weight of the handle was enough to push the handle to the lower helm position, I guess that means the cable is in good shape.
Yes — exactly! I’ll need to do a bit more tightening in order to make sure everything is tight.
This was the issue though. I’m happy it was not a broken cable.
I have a 31 fly bridge sedan. The steermaster cable on my fly bridge snapped where the lug fits into the slot on the drum. Luckily I have the down station and was able to switch over and continue on from below. I believe there are replacements out there to fix them but you need 3 or 4 hands to put the drum back together again.