Steering Troubles

[steplift20]

hey mush i know exactly what your going thru, when you pump grease into the shaft it only comes out of the bottom right what i did was i bought a flush mount grease fitting and a nozzle the fits it i drilled a hole about 1 to two inches from the top and thats how i got grease to flow to the top i used penetrating oil pb blaster heat and it only worked for a little while put a grease fitting near the top and becareful when you drill do a little at a time and check that it did not go thru the shaft
i was going to use a reg grease fitting and had it on but when i turned the engine it hit so watch were you are putting it you can use a reg one just make sure the motor doesnt hit it when its turned all the way to take the wheel off try hitting the center with a hammer as you are pulling on it
when it comes off your going to say why was that so hard its a tapered shaft and it should come right off

[parishht]

Get one of these lube nuts,
no drilling required,
I have not had any issues since I installed it and my steering
cable was rusted into the pivot tube.

http://www.davisnet.com/marine/produ...asp?pnum=00425

[THEFERMANATOR]

From what he is describing, his problem isn't his cable or tilt tube. It is actually the large diameter shaft that the whole engine turns on. I went through this before on one. To fix it by removing and cleaning everything is EXPENSIVE! Try what steplift20 suggested and get some grease forced through it with a grease zurk installed up higher. Once you can get some grease in it, get somebody to turn it side to side and work it in and keep greaseing it. You may want to spray it all down with cleaner first, heat it and spray it down with BLASTER before you grease it as well.

[mschrope]

Thanks for the tips, guys. THEFERMANATOR is correct-- problem is definitely with that whole engine shaft, not in the cables or tube. And yes, my trusted mechanic says breaking the engine down to truly fix the problem would be at least $500. So, I'm definitely looking for a cheaper solution even if it's not perfect.

The grease fitting on the shaft now is about 2-3 inches below the top of that shaft, and the grease will definitely only go down and out that way. So, I will try adding a fitting higher up.

When you say spray it all down with cleaner first (and what is BLASTER, by the way, is that a product name?) do you just mean getting what I can up into the shaft? Is there some kind of cleaner that can be injected using the grease fitting that will break down some of the 20-year-old grease I need to get out of there to make things work smoothly?

Thanks again.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Spray it down with a cleaner of some kind to get all of the old grease and build up off of the top of that pivot point, then use a good penetrating oil(I like PB BLASTER myself, available at most any auto parts store butaerocroll is another REALLY good one) to spray in there to try and loosen some of the rust. Then put a grease fitting in near the top like STEPLIFT20 said so you can force the grease directly through the bushing that is tight. This may not work, but at the price difference it should be worth trying.

[steplift20]

what i did also
is put the motor all the way down
put a block of wood under the skeg crank up the trailer slowly so that when you are raising the trailer you pushing on the skeg to lift the engine enough to get alittle space in between the pivot point and soak pb blaster
you will need 2 people doing this 1 cranking and 1 looking sometimes you migh have to shake the motor to break away from the old great the motor should have about 1/8 inch play just enough to get the pb blaster in to do its job
but you will still have to put in a grease fitting to get grease to the top of the shft it will work my engine was like that and thats how i fixed it
i put in a knew steering tube this year wow its like knew but i did havr to fix the first problem first the turning shaft