Installation of Arlyn's Wheel Steering Kit

Original steering system

These are pictures of the steering system originally installed on the boat. I experienced a fair amount of play in the steering and had the steering chain actually jump a tooth in the wheel sprocket when pressure was high on the rudder on several occasions. I also felt that the increased sensitivity of steering gained from the new kit, one turn stop to stop to almost two and a half turns, was necessary before installing an autopilot in the near future.

Removal of the original system was straight forward once the wires were removed from the steering chain, the rudder linkage, and the dozen or so screws and plastic tie downs. I just had to keep reassuring myself that I could get the new system in place before my next planned voyage in less than a week.

New Steering Installed

Thanks to Arlyn's unending patience to my inane and incessant questions I kept emailing to him, I completed the sheave assembly installation, connected the chain extension, and the wire to chain connections. I was proceeding very slow and methodical to ensure I didn't make any mistakes with this extremely integral boat system. Once all the parts were installed, running the wire through the sheaves and aligning everything went very smoothly. I also gained great respect for Arlyn's engineering on this kit.

There was about a foot and a half of wire left on both ends at the rudder clevis. I found that a dremel tool with a cutting disc worked very well for cutting off the excess wire. ( It didn't take me very long to figure out that a hack saw wasn't going to cut it, (pun intended)).

 

Stern Panel Re-installed

Below is a close-up of the wires running through the factory cutout in the stern panel. The wires make contact with the edging liner, but just barely.

I will keep checking the cutout edge liner frequently for wear for a while and report back on this page.

Roll your mouse over the picture to "install" the covers.

Here is the same picture in "X-ray" vision.

I will report back here how the steering upgrade performs on the big blue in a couple of weeks. Fair winds!