Hard steering

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I went through this last spring on my '97. Save yourself the trouble and just do two things, you'll be glad you did.

1. Buy a new cable. You can buy the OEM one, however I just bought an off the shelf one and it worked great. Some talked that the stroke was different or that the extra .5' would cause a problem (neither was true in my case). For me it worked perfect and was less than half the cost of the OEM.

2. Repack the rudder. You'll know if you need this if your boat is hard to turn under load. I replaced the cable and it steered great at an idle but P-turns took two hands. I brought it back to the shop, dropped the rudder, cleaned it with degreaser, then repacked it with fresh bearing grease. My wife can now steer the boat with her pinky. NOTE: Be careful when tightening the compression nut. It should be snug but not tight. And don't forget to reinstall a piece of security wire on the bolt.

Hi Lakeside,

The stiffness could be the cable itself. I think they are prone to seizure.

The manual for my boat said to turn the wheel back and forth every so often during lay-up to keep it from seizing. This wasn't an option for me since my boat is in offsite storage. I'll see how it is when I get it back.

If you can disconnect the cable from the rudder, and the wheel turns easy, then the stiffness has to do with rudder packing. If it it's still stiff when disconnected, it's the cable.