Sea Star Power steering, no room on the '70 CC

[TonyH]

Has anyone found a Power steering configuration that works with a bone stock Transom area on an early Center Console?
The Engine Well with the bait wells on both sides doesn't give enough room for Center Piston unit and it is also in the way of the Thru Engine system.

[CaptMick]

I am not familiar with the transom on a '70 CC but I cannot believe the Sea Star center unit won't fit. Can you post a picture of the transom so I can see. I have run sea star center and side mount on a variety of hulls as well as a few uniflex and may be able to help or offer suggestions.

[Bushwacker]

Not sure what you mean by power steering, but when I had the old V-4 mounted on the transom years ago, I rigged up a hydraulic steering system using some Hynautic parts to replace an old teleflex push-pull cable. I had a live well under port seat, but starboard seat was open to bilge for battery access, etc. The original system on my boat was set up for an OMC motor and had the push-pull cable anchored to a pivot on the transom, with the cable/rod attached to a ball joint on engine tiller bar. The tilt pin on the old OMC's is in the plane of the transom, so if you have a single-engine transom cutout, you can't use the thru-the-tilt pin set up like the Merc's, where the tilt pin is a couple of inches forward of the transom. My cable attached to a SS rod and the sheath connected to an aluminum tube that extended thru a 4" square hole in the splashwell with a leaky flexible boot over it.

It's hard to explain my rig without some pictures, but here's what I did:

1. I used a hydraulic cylinder designed for use on an inboard with a ball joint on one end, attached to an angle bracket for mounting to transom.
2. Had Hynautic change the other end where the rod exits cylinder to the fitting designed to attach to the tilt pin on the motor, which just happens to have same diameter threads as the teleflex aluminum tube.
3. I then had the aluminum tube, that the teleflex cable attached to, welded to some aluminum angle brackets, drilled to fit over the top mount bolts on the motor where they came thru the transom.
4. I then screwed the SS rod from the end of the teleflex cable to the hydraulic ram, screwed cylinder to the aluminum tube, and attached mount bracket on other end of cylinder to transom.
5. I rigged up a drag link from end of the ram rod that extended out port side of the aluminum tube to the engine tiller. The drag link could rotate and pivot as the motor turned and tilted.

I know it sounds like a Rube Goldberg set up, but it was 100% reliable, and a big improvement over the push-pull cable, since all relative motion between the motor and steering mechanism was accomodated by the drag link! It totally eliminated the pivoting cable/rod assembly and the leaky flexible boot. The hydraulic cylinder was tucked up out of the way against the transom, just below the stbd seat. I covered the big hole where the boot was with some teak trim with separate holes drilled in it for the steering cylinder, wiring harness, fuel line and throttle/shift cables. The whole works was 100% watertight, so I could have splashwell completely full of water with no leakage into bilge! Like all hydraulic systems, it totally eliminate torque feedback from the motor, i.e., the helm would stay where it was when you took hands off wheel. It also moved the motor completly from stop to stop, which my new Sea Star system does NOT do! (I'm only getting about 75% of the full pivot that motor is capable of! Has anyone else noticed this on the Sea Star system?!)

I think I still have all the original hardware, so I'll try to dig it out tomorrow, lay it out, and get some pictures of it that I can post.

I think Hynautic was bought by Teleflex, but I suspect most of the parts for that custom cylinder are still available via internet, so it shouldn't be too hard to duplicate. If you want my old parts, I'm sure I could make you a good deal on them! I think it would also work with the Sea Star Helm unit, except that you could use the rigid nylon tubing instead of the expensive rubber hoses, since the cylinder doesn't move. The only down side is that it's an unbalanced cylinder; there is a balanced cylinder that you could probably use with the rod coming out both sides, if you used more rigid brackets attached to the engine mount bolts. The brackets I had made up were only 2" x 2" x 1/8" aluminum angle stock; they were just used to support the tube. They would need to be much beefier to carry loads from the hydraulic cylinder. Denny

[Greno]

I can't imagine a 20 having any smaller well than my 18 and I have hydraulic steering. It pinches the hoses a little in a hard turn, but otherwise fine.

[uncleboo]

Here's a pic of my 18. You can't see the sides of the splashwell, but, you can determine where they are by the fuel line on the port side and the control cables on the starboard side.

[Bushwacker]

Tony, you don't say what motor you have, but if it's an OMC/BRP motor, I suspect the width of the splashwell isn't the problem as some have mentioned. The issue is the width of the transom cut-out, since the tilt tube is in the plane of the transom, as shown in following picture. I know the Merc tilt tube is located forward of transom, but don't know where it is on the other motors.


When you have a narrow transom cutout like I had on my original engine set up shown here,


there isn't much room next to the motor in the plane of the transom. I think what you're saying is that there isn't enough room for the brackets which mount to the tilt tube on the Sea Star system. The Sea Star system wasn't available in 1977 when I went looking for a hydraulic steering system, so I rigged up this system that I described earlier, which mounts the hydraulic cylinder below and forward of tilt pin and connects to motor with a pivoting/rotating SS link:



You can have my old Hynautic system if you want it, including the helm unit and reservoir for whatever it would cost to ship it, probably about $20-25. I still have the original installation manual, so about all you'd need is the nylon tubing and some compression fittings, and the pressure gage on the reservoir probably needs replacing, as it looks pretty rusty. The hydraulic cylinder mounts under stbd seat, so it's protected from salt water and is in great shape. The bracket is more robust than I remembered . . . the angle bracket was made out of 1/4" stock; I installed a grease fitting on the tube and the rod inside still moves freely. I had zero problems with the whole system for about 30 years and it was working fine when I removed it about 4 years ago.