Trojan Boat Forum

The hydraulic steering on my '81 tri-cabin seems to have a lot of friction in the system. With the hydraulic ram at the rudders disengaged the steering wheel turns very easily but turns very hard when the ram is engaged. Could this be caused by the packing nut on the rudder shafts being too tight making it harder for the system to turn the rudders? Any info would be helpful.
thanks
John Dean

Since you can access and disengage the ram, do so again and then try to operate the rudders by hand. I recommend separately.

Hydraulics are used to operate the steering primarily because the ease of routing tubing makes getting from the steering input to the steering output easy, not because superhuman force is required to turn the rudders. Note that with the tranny in neutral, i can spin my (goretex packed) shafts by turning the props, with two dry cutlass bearing adding their resistance.

Did this problem come on suddenly?

The problem already existed when I purchased the boat last Fall but since I had never had a boat with hydraulic steering before I thought it might be caused by the boat not being used much in recent years. The marine surveyor did mention that the support for the steering linkage had been relocated from it's original location and that the Starboard rudder post appeared to have been repositioned for some unknown reason. I'm afraid that someone did a mickey mouse repair job on the rudderpost after striking bottom or something. I guess I'll have to pull it all apart this Fall when I haul out for the Winter and see what's what

In the meantime I'll try to isolate the source of the friction/binding as you mentioned

Since its been messed with, while youre in the area once youre pulled for the winter (which trojan doesn't recommend), id check for proper toe-in of rudders too (search this site), once youve got the binding resolved.