TOPIC: question about cable steering.

Just purchased a 1967 crestliner marauder. It has cable steering and I have never had a boat with cable steering. I have two questions.

1. Best way to maintain the steering? Periodic shots of wd40?

2. It feels sometimes that it catches. Is that usual?

Thanks,
Brian

haplife wrote:

Just purchased a 1967 crestliner marauder. It has cable steering and I have never had a boat with cable steering. I have two questions.

1. Best way to maintain the steering? Periodic shots of wd40?

2. It feels sometimes that it catches. Is that usual?

Thanks,
Brian

Catches how? You'll be trying to steer to port & the wheel, cables & motor too, hang up & doesn't continue to rotate momentarily, then continues to steer to port?

Steering cables are attached to the front of the motor w/ a captive keeper, so you can disconnect motor w/out completely having cable system jump the pulleys, correct?

Disconnect the motor from the steering, will it move side to side w/out catching?

Attempt to rotate the steering wheel, hang up or smoothly rotating?

I'd guess there's a pulley that's not rotating freely in the system somewhere.

haplife,

WELCOME ABOARD.

I've used plain old cheap petroleum jelly for pulley lubricant for 4 decades. - It doesn't take much.

Otherwise, there isn't much maintenance needed on those systems, except replacing parts when they eventually wear-out.

yours, satx

check the cable to see if the outside coating is cracked and coming off of the steel cable. and hanging up on a pully. frog

I concur with Frog's assessment. Hang up usually occurs with missing or cracked cable coating. Since you probably don't know how old the cable is, and since it is an very important part of your ability to safely operate your boat, especially at speed, I would be replacing it prior to operating it on the water.

Regards,
StevieB

Steve and Frog are correct. Most of the time its the outer coating. Mine did the same thing. It was the original and finally separated at the pulley near the motor. Replaced it and now it's good to go.

Bob

Also take a look at the cable end connectors. Make sure they are tight and watch to see if they may be hanging on something. Once the covering of the cable is compromised the inside steel 'wire rope' is subject to rust and may stiffen and is going to fail.

While you are looking over your steering cable set up check to make sure that all pulleys and end connections are secured into the boat hull, and not just screwed into wood. I had an end that was screwed into transom wood pull out and in a fraction of a second, lost all steering control. Lucky for me I was running just above idle speed.

frog, et. al.,

THANKS for telling him., though the cable is so cheap off ebay.com, "big-box stores" & even local hardware stores, that I didn't even think to comment.

There is also a DACRON rope (made for ham radio antenna installation) that won't stretch, is UV-proof and essentially lasts longer than you/me.
(The Dacron rope is about 3x the price of the plastic/steel cable, however.)

yours, satx

I been using lifeline cable (used mostly on sailboats). 7 X 7 Stainless steel cable Vinyl Coated

Wanted to thank everyone for all of the great information. This is a fantastic forum/community!

I have the same boat as yours and I found that the rear pulleys have a bad habit of freezing up if you don't put soom petro jelly or other lube on them. Great little boat other wise. Kinda rare. Skip.