My boat has rack and penion steering and has gotten very hard to turn, how can it be repaired or lubricated?? Thanks for Your Help

ttt

Over time the cables get moisture in them and will rust. I'm not sure there is any way to fix it. I would just replace it now before it goes bad on the water. Mine broke in the second hour of an 8 hour tournament. Luckily the motor was straight and i could steer the front of the boat around with the trolling motor in the water while my dad was on the big motor. If it had been in a turn or if i was on plane it could have been a much worse outcome.

first thing i'd do is
1)pull the cables out of the tubes. 9/16's bolt on the port side.
2)use carb cleaner and clean out the tubes, and the cable ends.
3)while the cables are out, turn the wheel. if it turns easy, then
4)lube cable ends and inside tubes with ANTI-SEIZE.
5)re-instal cable ends, and tighten bolt.

now if, while doing #3 the wheel is hard to turn, then your helm may be bad and you will need to replace the whole system.

that's what i did on my ole bullet. worked like a charm. course i ended up installing hydr. steering on that boat before i sold it.

good luck.

Thank You Steve this is on a 2005 Triton with a 150, I thought this was awful soon to be having problems.

i'd betchya anything that grease in the tubes is full of dirt,etc.
once that happens, the grease and dirt combo becomes like cement. and you can't turn the wheel.

anti seize should do the trick.

i can help pm sent

what do you mean "remove cables from tubes 9/16" bolts"? do you mean remove cables from helm? I don't think the cables will come out from the housings. I am having same problem on a boat I just bought. Wonder if I can lossen the cables from the helm (drop the long flat part that encloses the teeth end of the cable and try to blow air and transmission fluid through the cables)???

on the port side of the engine, there's is a part called the steering link arm. it has a 9/16's bolt that attaches the cable end to the link arm. take that bolt out, and then you can pull the cables out of the tubes.
it can be a pain to get them out, and on some boats you gotta take the engine off the transom to have enough room to pull them out.

what your describing won't work. transmission fluid won't do a thing, i don't think anyway??

usually when cables get into a bind it's at the engine side. inside the tubes. unless the teeth on the helm are messed up.

there is a way

First off you have to find the problem. You should be able to tell if cable is tight in the tube. Take the steering cable connection nut loose, grab motor, push and pull and you should see movement of cable end. If not or it is hard to move problem is in tube to cable. If you have easy movement their you have cable problems. Not much to go wrong on a rack type helm being a straight shaft with gear teeth. You should see a part # on cable not far from motor end if you need to replace the cable.

Go it I just took cables off engine and got a plastic tube big enough to go over the entire engine end of the steering tube. Put radiator hose clamps on the hose and put air compressor hose in the other end of plastic tube with radiator hose clamp on it so no air leaks. Filled the plastic tube with sea foam and then turned the air compressor on and adjusted the pressure. Within a few minutes (oh yea lossened the cable nuts at the helm) the sea foam was coming out at the helm. Mother steers with one finger!!! Saved me a bunch on not going to hydraulic!! Thanks guys