Changing steering in A25

[tribologist]

Pulled the core. The oil in the grease hadmigrated down to the bilge area and up higher there is hardened grease (soap) between the coils. Not even the finest epifanes thinner disolved it. Oil might over time. Mine was as sticky as a flytrap

Coil it up and run it in your mother in law’s dishwasher is probably the best way to clean it. Regular greases are actually soaps. They are made by boiling oil and caustics to form s soap structure that looks like a sponge under a microscope.

[WillieC]

I have been re-watching Breaking Bad and got sidetracked on researching the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty and wound up distracted by Schrodinger's Cat dilemma, but Eytelwein's formula clearly takes the cake here.

Now THERE'S a boat name!

"Coil it up and run it in your mother in law’s dishwasher"....whoever said tribologists suffer from common sense never read this!

(Actually, this is prolly a good idea, just don't get caught. I have run diluted dishwasher (not dishwashing) soap through the freshwater side of my engine after replacing the sleeves. There was a lot of fine rust crud dust leftover from its seawater cooled days even though I meticulously scraped as much as I could. That crud had turned the AF muddy brown so I drained it and tried the dishwasher method suggested on another forum. Sorry , John. Follow with good rinse before replacing AF.)

[tribologist]

Here is what i did to pull the wheel. I first drilled a washer i used as drill guide. 1/4-20 holes.

[tribologist]

"Coil it up and run it in your mother in law’s dishwasher"....whoever said tribologists suffer from common sense never read this!

(Actually, this is prolly a good idea, just don't get caught. I have run diluted dishwasher ...

Dishwashers are awesome. The key is to replace the rinse fluid with sometning like Cortec 337 to prevent corrosion. Mother in law will never notice. It has some amines and other goodness in it...

(I have a spray bottle with Cortec 337 and water. Steel rust insanely fast after being degreases with a caustic. )

I used them (without detergent) to clean ham radio gear from smoker hams. The only thing that don’t go well in them are hard drives.

[DesertAlbin736]

tribologist or "tribulationist"? Antique classic out of production boats that are few in number and of foreign manufacture can certainly lend themselves to tales of trials and tribulations! One of our grandsons is trained as a phlebotomist (does blood draws at a doctor's office). I tease him as being a "lobotomist".

By the way, one of our POs, not sure if the most recent one we dealt with or a prior one, rigged up a tiller autopilot. The way they did it was construct a wooden stub tiller about 15" or so lone to attach to the rudder post quadrant arm & hook that to a Raymarine Tiller Pilot similar to this (I don't have any actual pictures of mine or of the stub tiller)

raya12004-2.jpg

To use it one has to pull up the center panel in the aft cabin to expose the rudder head, disconnect the steering cabin (or just leave it connected & let it turn turn the wheel) hook up this stub tiller and attach the tiller pilot. I has a long wired remote that routes up to the helm & one can control it that way. We tried it out a few times but it didn't seem to hold course well & was a PITA to set up so we never use it. However, the stub tiller could act as an emergency tiller if the Teleflex failed, either with the tiller pilot hooked up or a crewmember sitting in the aft cabin & steering by hand & taking verbal directions from the wheelhouse like in a ship with a steering engine room.

[LopezMike]

Tillermaster (Long out of business) had an accessory for connecting to wheel steering. It was a lever hanging down from the center of the wheel with a quick release clamp for gripping the arm to the rim of the wheel. The bottom end of the arm had a pin to engage the end of the tiller pilot arm. A friend of mine used one for many a mile on his 40 foot sailboat.

[DesertAlbin736]

Tillermaster (Long out of business) had an accessory for connecting to wheel steering. It was a lever hanging down from the center of the wheel with a quick release clamp for gripping the arm to the rim of the wheel. The bottom end of the arm had a pin to engage the end of the tiller pilot arm. A friend of mine used one for many a mile on his 40 foot sailboat.

We had an Tillerpilot on our Catalina 25 sailboat & used it on our 2012 harbor hop up & back from San Diego to San Pedro & over to Catalina Island & back. Helped us do a 50NM one day run from Oceanside to Chula VIsta, CA on the way back (including a choppy stern sea rounding of Point Loma & into San Diego Bay). Pretty much a one day record that stands to this day. This picture taken on departing Avalon, Catalina Island on a no wind day & 30 mile motor sail run to Dana Point.

DSCN0632 crop.jpg

DSCN0654 50.5 Nauticl miles Oceanside to Chula Vista 7-18.jpg

O_Flow_San Diego.JPG

[tribologist]

DA, The Sport pilot is essentially the same platform as the tiller unit. Any chance you have a remote for it laying around you would sell?

[nebulatech]

Thank you Tribologist for the thorough guide! It takes some extra work and thought to take photos and notes while doing the work. At least for me, I just forget the pictures.

[hetek]

Lol. DA. clearly win the best user name award.

Head end? Is that the antenna side? Im dabbling in radio a little as K1ULF.

Are your boat in the water yet? We took a first trip yesterday down CT river

Forgot to clarify...

Not off-air transmissions, but rather fiber optics, mostly. I work for an Internet Service Provider as an Inside Plant Technician (Headend).

My boat is getting to the finish line soon! I am completing the interior woodwork and reinstalling. She's seaworthy now, but I want to do as much as I can in my garage instead of at the marina.

[WillieC]

Your monicker really should be:

ISPIPTHetek

For clarity’s sake. Ha!

[hetek]

You are correct, WillieC... but rather...

I am an ISP ISP technician. Go figure that someone once upon a time decided that initials can be picked from letters inside the word:

ISP = In Side Plant

Not to be confused with OSP. Yes, you guessed it...

OSP = Out Side Plant.

Yes, this is my chosen profession. How embarrassing.

[WillieC]

OOPS!

[tribologist]

I figured I create a new post on this subject. I would assume most of the A25's out there are in need for a steering overhaul.

Mine started to get a bit stiff and the Autopilot (an old Raytheon Sportpilot Plus) started to have issues with it.

Disclaimer!!!! If you are considering at some point add autopilot you should disregard this post, install hydraulic steering and write a post about it.... there is really no great way to add autopilot to cable steerings. Octopus has electric helms but a hydraulic system is way better.



I decided to replace it with a Teleflex / SeaStar Safe-T QC Rotary Steering System. The old cable was very close to 15 ft so I used that length and it works fine. Maybe it run a little more straight since the cable now has to exit from the top of the helm instead of from the bottom port in the old Swedish Teleflex helm. a 16ft system would work too.

To remove the old system you start with taking off the nuts on the back of the helm. That will allow you to pull the gear and the old cable. Tape the exposed cable with electric or masking tape before you coat everything with old grease.
coveroffonold.jpg

old cable out.jpg

Next is to remove the steering wheel and unscrew the 4 slotted screws behind the steering wheel. My original wheel was on hard. I ended up drilling and tapping two holes on each side of the shaft and used a steering wheel puller to get it of.

After you loosen the 4 screws the old housing comes off. To remove the bezel/shaft you need to get the 4 nuts off that you see in the picture. Clean the studs carefully and put some PB blaster on them. You cant get to the head of those bolts if they start to spin. (they did for me so it took some extra effort to remove them.

housing removed.jpg

As you can see here comparing the new cable with the old gear in the helm It is not possible to change just the cable by using adapters etc. Modern standard cables will not fit the narrow groove on the old gear.

newcable-oldgear.jpg



After pulling the cable and throwing the dirty stiff snake overboard its time to install the new smooth shiny steering system.


onground.jpg




The part number I got was SS13715. $144 at Defender. (sold out at the moment but they have the 16 ft.)

303501.jpg

You also need a support tube and a new new clamp since the tube is 7/8" od on new system vs 16mm-5/8" tube diameter on the old system. You also need a clevis kit with a long bolt. I don't know for sure what the thread is on the bolt in the clevis kit. You might have to drill and preferable thread the steering arm to fit. Depending on what type clevis you choose you might need a bushing too.

Clamp.GIF

Support tube.GIF

Defender did not have the clevis, clamp or tube in stock so I ended up cooking my own, Easy if you have a full machine shop... I bored out the old ball joint to fit the end of the new cable ( Dia 5/8) and I put a cross hole in it for a 3/8 locking pin. Probably not doable without a mill. If you drill to deep you will have no material left under the snap ring groove and it is hard to center the cross hole in a drill press.

My old clamp was also home made since before so I figured I would re-use it. I welded a 7/8" tube to a 3/4" tube I drilled and reamed oversize for 5/8 to clear the cable and then I put in the 7/8" UNF thread in the lathe to fit the nut on the cable.

IMG_2956.jpeg
IMG_8905.jpg
IMG_8936.jpg



The helm fitted fine but there is not much room for a larger helm. I had to re-dress some of my pretty laced wire bundles since I have a breaker panel to the left of the helm.



To fit the bracket for the helm I had to rectangilify the hole a little with a hack saw. It just takes four tangential cuts. Easy to do with a taped hacksaw blade.

rectanglification.jpg

After the bracket is bolted in, then it is time to install the new cable into the helm. You need to use the upper port to get the direction of steering right. The spent cable tube goes in the bottom tube. Follow the instruction on how to lock in the new tube. It takes quite a push to get it in. If you also like to have the wheel centered with neutral rudder you will have to mess with it a bit.

IMG_8945.jpg

At this point all you need to do is to bolt on the new bezel and put the steering wheel back and enjoy your new smooooooth steering.

Stroke is the same 8.5" on both new and old but the new system is 3 turns from stop to stop vs ~2 turns for the old system.

IMG_8937.jpg

[Mwells44]

I just replaced my steering with all the parts you listed. I purchased everything on Amazon and Ebay. In my refit of my Albin 25 this was the easiest and stress free job I've done. Even the threads on the clevis joint bolt were the same threads as on the rudder arm.