Bravo 3 Steering Pin Leak

[Jimmy Buoy]

Well I knew my new boat was going to be a bit of a project boat, but wasn't expecting this!

I first notice that the stb drive had quite a bit of play in steering - enough that backing into a slip was unpredictable.

Next was noticing a constant drip, about 1/sec coming from the bottom of the stb exhaust manifold. I kept tracking it down until I discovered it was actually coming from the base of the steering lever and running down the inside of the transom assembly. I used a borescope to take a better look and what I saw was a rusty mess!

The choice would be to have a mechanic remove both engines (since the port must come out first on my boat), remove the stb transom assembly, disassemble the thing and replace the pin and whatever else required OR attempt the JR Marine kit to repair it myself. I chose the latter... Here's the long sorted story.

Time to drill out the access window on the drive.

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Drilling the small holes was quite easy. Just let the drill do the work with little pressure instead of ramming it through and breaking the bit. No broken bits by taking it easy. Still a bit unnerving drilling into your drive.
Not sure why my pics are getting turned on their sides. Anyone knows how to correct please let me know.

I used a sharp chisel and a dremmel grinder to get the window out in one piece.

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Now things are going to get real ugly! I get to take a close look at the steering shaft's top nut and the steering lever's pinch bolt and nut.

Here's the top nut and steering lever pinch bolt... Nasty.

And the pinch bolt's nut...

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Trying to first get the top nut to budge using the special open end wrench was a fail. Even using a section of hollow pipe for extra leverage - no go. I tried to drill a hole into the nut thinking I could break the nut off of the pin, but after finding the nut quite hard to drill decided to use a chisel in the edge of the new hole. Hitting the chisel hard, the nut actually began to unscrew. Once it started, I could use the open end wrench with the bar.

The nut was unable to unscrew past the point of hitting the top of the inside of the transom assembly. The pin had to start dropping down from the Gimble Ring. Stuck. Major time stuck in that Gimble Ring.

I didn't want to crack the cast aluminum Gimble Ring so a home made puller was my plan. The underside of the steering pin has a threaded centre, but of course it was rusted to the point where no bolt would go. It had to be run out with a tap. I tapped enough for a threaded rod to take 8 turns into the pin.

Next was to get a socket that would allow the pin to be pulled into it without blocking its progress.

Here's the puller. Threaded rod, nut, washers, bearing, washer, and the socket.

With each turn of the nut, I'd hear a "crack" and the pin would come down a bit. I'd then have to unscrew the top nut to allow for more movement downwards.

Finally. The pin is out and you can see how nasty it really is. Check out the seal that was "keeping out the water".

 

[techmitch]

Great thread/post Jim. It may be a pain at this point but if you go back and crop your pics just a bit they will post correctly. Thanks for posting all of your trials, tribulations and contributions over the years.

 

[MoonRiver]

I did the JR Marine swivel shaft repair job a few years ago on a 1994 2700 Maxum. It worked great and saved me a couple boat bucks. And yes, drilling that many holes in your transom is not for the faint of heart. Great job. And you get a super cool stainless steel cover badge on your drives.

 

[Nater Potater]

Merc makes a stainless replacement pin for (IIRC) around $330. Now, there are stainless variants available through outlets like this for a whole bunch cheaper! Reviews are primarily 4 & 5 star. I'm usually pretty wary of off-brand items, especially when they're not easy to get to, but, since you've already done the hard part, it might be worth considering. You can also get the complete pin/tiller arm for just under $100.

 

[MattB92]

Nice write up @Jimmy Buoy. I've been trying to track down water in my bilge for quite some time now. I've eliminated almost everything but the steering pin... So I have a bad feeling I know what I'll be doing next.

Can anybody answer how long I can let this go? (if this is my issue).
Summers are pretty short up here and would rather wait till the winter.

 

[scoflaw]

I wouldn't go with a $35 chinese pin. You can by a decent one for a 100, NuWave marine or similar.

 

[Nater Potater]

Nice write up @Jimmy Buoy. I've been trying to track down water in my bilge for quite some time now. I've eliminated almost everything but the steering pin... So I have a bad feeling I know what I'll be doing next.

Can anybody answer how long I can let this go? (if this is my issue).
Summers are pretty short up here and would rather wait till the winter.

It tends to gradually get worse, rather than being a catastrophic failure. YMMV

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Great thread/post Jim. It may be a pain at this point but if you go back and crop your pics just a bit they will post correctly. Thanks for posting all of your trials, tribulations and contributions over the years.

Thanks for the tip but not sure just how to "crop". I'll mess with it and see what I can do to correct!

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

I did the JR Marine swivel shaft repair job a few years ago on a 1994 2700 Maxum. It worked great and saved me a couple boat bucks. And yes, drilling that many holes in your transom is not for the faint of heart. Great job. And you get a super cool stainless steel cover badge on your drives.

Agreed. I however, did NOT choose to use the super cool cover but I'll get into what I did and why shortly. Glad you had success - not everyone does.

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Nice write up @Jimmy Buoy. I've been trying to track down water in my bilge for quite some time now. I've eliminated almost everything but the steering pin... So I have a bad feeling I know what I'll be doing next.

Can anybody answer how long I can let this go? (if this is my issue).
Summers are pretty short up here and would rather wait till the winter.

I'm sure mine was leaking for YEARS. No rush. It will just get more corroded slowly, but you'll be replacing the steel parts anyway.

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Ok - I'll move on with where it's gone from where I left off.

The good thing about my situation is that the steering pin was still as one with the Gimble Ring - no slippage at all. The steering slop was in the steering lever at the steering pin. Either corrosion on the pin or lever itself had worn off causing a gap between the two. Just have someone hold the Gimble Ring outside while you move the steering lever inside to see if that's where the slop is (remember to disconnect the hydraulic arm from the steering first). Mine was so loose it could have been that the pinch bolt on the lever was never properly tightened in the first place. It takes quite a bit of torque to tighten.

This is the underside of the Gimble Ring showing the square where the steering pin sits and is "pinched" tight with the U-bolt through the Ring after assembly.

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Something that older Bravo 1 drives had was a zerk grease fitting that was drilled into the transom assembly just above the steering pin seal to supply grease to the pin shaft which rides on the bushing. This is something that was phased out with the Bravo 3 and likely would have prevented the issue of rusty pins chewing the rubber seals, so I drilled and installed the fitting.

zerk installed just below the window to grease the pin in the future.

The toughest part of the steering pin install was getting the new steering lever's pinch bolt tight on the steering pin. It was slow and tedious, using 3 different box end wrenches. One to hole the bolt side, supported by a steel tube to the driveway so it wouldn't move and the other two alternating on the nut side being pulled down a partial turn at a time using a power extender bar. I found that two different manufacturers would have different positions on the same size wrench. Important since there was so little travel allowed within the size of the "window". Apparently JR Marine sells pre-bent, ground down wrenches that allow more travel. Hindsight, should have gotten their custom wrenches... Got'm tight anyway and didn't want to break the bolt with any more torque.

Once installed, I attached the steering lever to the SeaStar ram and checked for play with the Gimble Ring. Virtually no play! That's what I wanted.

Only thing is now the Port drive seems to be very sloppy in comparison to the Stb just done... You guessed it, decided to rip the Port apart and replace it's steering pin/steering lever too. Am I nuts??

After what I learned with the Stb side, I was able to cut the window and using a chisel, bang the top nut loose quite quickly. Next was tapping the threaded hole out on the bottom of the old pin, screw in the threaded rod and pull the pin. This was done on the same type of rusty mess as the Stb side in about 2hrs after lunch. What a difference a bit of experience makes!!

Here's the Port Pin... Not quite as bad as the Stb Pin, but still nasty and was probably leaking a bit too. The seal was still in it's resting spot in the transom assembly, but it was half worn through. You can see where it ran on the black section of the pin between the steering lever square and the larger Gimble Ring square section of the pin. A bit rusty there which cuts and wears the rubber seal. Fortunately, the same scenario as the Stb side where the Gimble Ring was not sloppy, just the steering lever on the steering pin was loose/worn. Gimble Rings are NOT cheap!

Zerk fitting installed and transom assembly repainted to reduce corrosion advancing. New Pin and Steering Lever ready to be installed. New shift cable is already installed. Water line is shortened and plugged here to reduce it's footprint in the area. My boat has Raw Water Thru-Hulls feeding the engines and has a plate inside the transom assembly blocking off the water supply too.

close-up of the zerk fitting and bushing for the steering pin

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

The zerk fittings presented a bit of a problem when it came to installing the stainless plates from the JR Marine Kit. I would have to provide a custom cutout on the SS plate to allow for clearance with the zerk fitting. I am also not a big fan of the look of the SS plate on the transom assembly. I did hear of another boater that decided to put the original piece of aluminum from the cutout back into the window using two part epoxy with great success, so I did the same. I had to fashion a piece of thin but stiff card stock to fit behind the window and temporarily supported it with various objects (tooth brushes, pencils, skewers all taped together inside the boat) so the aluminum didn't fall into the open window. Pressed epoxy into the gap and smoothed it out before placing masking tape over the piece once done. The next day, tape removed, support objects removed, and sanded the face smooth then reapplied more epoxy to ensure no voids remained and that a smooth finish would be possible with the final sanding.

Here's the result...

Hopefully I don't have to re-open the window in the future, but if I do It won't take much to sand through the paint and I'll see where the epoxy is and re-drill the window opening. I think it will look better to have a original looking transom assembly once the new Merc stickers are on - and it shouldn't ever leak with the epoxy, paint, and sticker.

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

At the same time I was tackling the steering pins, a decision was made to clean up the lousy looking drives and get them more protected from corrosion.

The PO apparently used a paint brush to slop on some kind of orange primer over the outdrive, followed up by what looks like regular bottom paint again with a paint brush. The drives were still corroding, but some of that I think was due to the fact that BOTH mercathode systems were no being powered and the bottom paint was extended right to the transom assemblies (apparently a no-no since it can accelerate galvanic corrosion on the drives), plus using copper based bottom paint on an aluminum drive is problematic.

I began to sand the bottom paint and primer paint off the drives as best I could - what a mess... I tried to leave as much OEM paint on the surface as possible since it seems to be more resilient that added paint layers.

I filled most of the areas of bad pitting on the lower drive with two part epoxy (at least two applications) and sanded reasonably smooth.

Next was self etching primer...

followed by my first attempt at painting with a compressor/sprayer using Rustoleum Gloss Black epoxy implement paint mixed with acetone and catalyst. Not having a spray booth I decided to hang all the parts like a redneck from my backyard tree and paint in the open. I was looking for corrosion protection more than a mirror-like finish for the fish to admire...

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

More pics of the paint process...

 

[Jimmy Buoy]

Drives now reinstalled and new stickers applied. Still have to clean up the area around the transom assembly areas with bottom paint, but I think it looks better than before. Should be leak free and tight, accurate steering with the SeaStar system and no play!

Before...

After...

Hopefully it holds up, but it's got to be better than it was! Thanks for hanging in for the long sad story folks!! Now I need to get the props back on and see if this thing floats

 

[Thornton69]

Well done!