Very Stiff Steering-HELP

I have a 97' S.N. that we just had tuned up and prepared for the season about a week ago. The boat, as a whole, is running incredible but the steering is near impossible to turn. Defiantly needs two hands and it's a serious challenge. Our service center, the largest Nautique dealer in Michigan, told us about 2 years ago that we would need to replace the steering cable sometime in the near future. We have yet to do it and after already paying a small fortune to tune the boat up this spring, we'd rather find a cheaper route. Is there any other fix besides the cable? Or is replacing the cable something I can do myself? PLEASE give me any advice you can offer on this topic!

First place to start is to pull the backseat, access panel and then disconnect the tiller arm from the steering cable. At this point you can go check the wheel again to see if it's the cable thats bad or if you need to check your rudder. Our cable was alright, but we decided to change it anyway since we had everything apart.

To get the new one in, you'll probably have to cut some zip ties to feed it through. Get a rope or something tied to it as a guide line just in case. Once you get it out and are ready for the new one you'll need to remove the kick panel and some other items so you can reach your arm under the air box to guide it through. Pretty simple once you get everything opened up and ready to go.

Check my posts. I recently swapped mine out (same 97 SN) with a standard cable and it works perfect. Like a post above said, check the tiller arm first. Assuming that moves relatively well then the cable is the issue. I posted a PN and vendor a couple days ago. You'll love your boat again after the swap.

BTW, it has been an ongoing project as I continue to rebuild the steering to make it like new. After you swap out the cable post your experience. I have found some other issues after swapping out the cable and as I fix each one the steering gets better and better

Here's the info:

"Alright, so installed the new 20' cable and it worked like a dream. Installation was easy and the extra six inches was no big deal.

I have heard concerns about the off-the-shelf cable having a different stroke than the CC cable so I compared them before install, they are both 8 1/4" stroke. I know the one in the boat was the stock cable because I bought this boat from my dad and he bought the boat brand new. I cannot confirm on other boat models but on my 1997 the only difference in the cables was the 6" of cable length.

I bought my cable from JMSonline.net, it was about $100 plus $30 for 2nd day air. PN SSC12420"