Engine / Steering Control

[cmonroe54]

After a pleasant lunch with my wife and another couple at a waterside restaurant, “us guys” got back on my Hunter Cherubini 37 1980 and started backing away under power. Putting the shift lever in forward caused the lever to swing free (engine still in reverse) and the wheel to spin free (pull out the emergency tiller).

Man! Was I glad to see my wife on the dock!

Put out the anchor, call the tow boat, wait… you know the drill.

Does anyone have any experience with the connections and structures in the binnacle / pedestal? It was too late to dig into it when I got back to port. I’m not even sure how to get at the inner working except to take off the compass.

 

[Jim Legere]

Sounds like the shift cable broke. Replacement involves a few steps after removing the compass. Which steering pedestal does your boat have? (Edson, Yacht Specialties, or Merriman?)

 

[Jim Legere]

Here is a link for doing the shift cable on the Edson. And here is a link for the Yacht Specialties. For the Merriman it will be similar, but I have never worked on one. Keep in mind that the cause of the shift cable breaking is an issue that has to be fixed. Normally the short shifter lever on top of the transmission gets tight and binds, causing stress on the shift cable that usually results in it breaking inside the binnacle. You must free this shift lever up or the cable will just break again. In my case this involved taking the cover off the top of the gearbox, fine sand paper, oil, grease, and a new cover gasket. You may be able to avoid this and free it up with some sort of spray lube, if you are lucky.

 

[rardiH36]

If it is a Yacht Specialties, I have had mine completely removed/ apart ... And actually managed to get it reinstalled!

When I get back to a real computer, I will find my 2007/2008 posts about it. And advise the url's.

Losing both shifting and steering at the same time does have me confused. Unless the broken shift fitting happened to lodge in the wheel's chain sprocket. If your boat still is original, the plastic shift lever housing my have cracked apart inside = failed. If so, look at this link to the replacement available from this site's sponsor.

http://shop.sailboatowners.com/prod.php?54883

 

[cmonroe54]

Thank you so much for responding! The pedestal is not as much of a "black box" as it was before.

While waiting on the hook, I had gone below, found the shift lever and exercised it, hoping I could get it in forward and limp back to port. It was stiff, but not jammed. When I tried it I found the steering was gone, too. I'm wondering how the two are connected. What single failure would knock out both? I'll be down at the boat tomorrow. I'll see what's going on at the top end.

The links above were invaluable! Right now I would guess that the pedestal is a Yacht Specialties. Thanks again!

 

[cmonroe54]

PS: the wheel stayed still while I used the emergency tiller which moved as expected. No binding or linkage to the wheel.

 

[Johnb]

One might only guess that if the events are connected, the steering chain and cables popped off the guide rollers and ate the shift cable.

Please let us know what you find

 

[cmonroe54]

So I went to the boat today and it is indeed a Yacht Specialties pedestal. The YS on the wheel hub nut was my first clue. The pedestal control (PC) head has snapped internally, the clamp holding the gear cable was slipping on the lever and the chain for the wheel is missing, presumably lower in the pedestal. I checked the rudder cables down below and they still look good, just loose. The link above by rardiH36 is the exact replacement part for the pedestal control head… at $270.00. At that price I have to ask what it would cost to replace the whole pedestal. Anybody?

The slotted head bolts were impossible to get out but since the part has failed I’ll just cut the PC head off and leave enough bolt standing so I can grab it. Another blogger mentioned that he never could get them out. He cut them flush, drilled and tapped new holes in the base and created an adapter to accept the new PC head.

While I’m in there I think I should replace the shift and throttle cables. Are there specific parts for these or are they generic - available at any industrial supplier? Grainger? I’m in new territory but there’s always a first time.

PS: The ladies I mentioned at the top of this thread had met “us guys” at the restaurant; they had a car. They ended up watching things play out while slurping ice cream cones until the tow boat came. Then they went home and had pizza ready for us when we got back.

Thanks again for the info! Invaluable!

 

[Jim Legere]

An Edson pedestal (YS is no longer manufactured AFAIK) would run in the $1600 - $2000 dollar range, so the SBO chandlery price for the PC head is a bargain.

 

[rardiH36]

Dear cmonroe:

So I was able to find my long ago post about the topic. 2007 it was! Time flies as it also stands still.

I cut-and-pasted it below.

The entire post has information that I think might help. But I have highlighted in bold what might be the most useful for your repair.

Regarding the $'s for the replacement control head. As Jim already commented .... totally reasonable. For a custom made piece -- a bargain really. This only became available over the last few years. Back in 2007, a replacement would have been a one-off attempt by a specialty fabricator. Probably weeks if not months to have one made/delivered. And for lots of $'s. That is why I reinforced my original with SS metal and epoxy before it's inevitable fail. I won't look it up now, but I seem to remember that MaineSail also posted a method to repair the part. But that was before the SBO $275 OEM drop-in became the better option.

==========================================================

Yacht Specialties - I took Mine Apart

Dear Manny:Congrats to you and crew for getting your boat under control so quickly. I hope that I keep as clear a head when I encounter my first unexpected equipment failure. (See my final paragraph for more comment about the emergency tiller on my boat.)

Back to your original post re the failed equipment, this past summer I completely removed and reinstalled the Yacht Specialties pedestal on my 1980 Cherubini 36. The steering mechanism was operating fine, but its removal was necessary to repair the cockpit sole's water saturated wood core through which the pedestal is fastened.

By the picture that Ian McGain posted, the mechanism looks to be the same that is on my boat.As already posted by Grizz, although Yacht Specialities is defunct, Edson is a source of info.
On the web page http://www.edsonmarine.com/support/techsupport.php you can find a pdf file entitled, ".... Planning Installation and Maintenance Guide." Its for their newer products, but it looks like many of the principles are similar to the Yacht Specialties system.

Hopefully your cable just became loose over time and finally it slipped out the quadrant cable channels or off the sheaves that angle the cable from the pedestal to the quadrant. But if you do need to take your system apart here's some info about my experience:

I did find it useful take close-up photos and make notes of each section before disassembly so that I would have better chance of later remembering how to put it back together. I can’t give you step-by-step guidelines, since I didn’t retain my notes or pictures. But how it fit back together is rather logical. Took a few hours to remove the system and reassembly took me a full afternoon. You probably will be dealing only the the cable/chain/sprocket system, but if the whole pedestal needs be removed, throttle and transmission cables need to be removed/re-attached from the engine side as well. (About a loose cable, before my cockpit sole repair, my cable was somewhat looser than I would have expected as normal ... "not to loose, not too tight". Perhaps this was because as the wood core rotted/delaminated between the upper and lower fiber-glass skin, the pedestal was depressed downward from normal which loosened the tension? My tip-off about the core damage was that the top of the pedestal/wheel assembly would move from side an inch or two when pushed ... it didn't feel solid.)

One thing that I did do wrong on my first refitting of the steering chain/cable is that I hadn't noticed that the cable section crosses over itself inside the pedestal. That is: If you are standing to the aft of the pedestal looking forward, the chain/cable that drops from the starboard side of wheel chain sprocket crosses over to port sheave that angles the vertical drop of cable back to the quadrant. The other side crosses from port to the starboard sheave. Also although its not readily noticeable, one of sheaves is a bit forward of the other. This is so the cable sides don’t rub against each other as they cross inside the pedestal. This routing inside my boat was hard to see on my boat, but I probably would have missed the cross-over even if it was right in front of me. So best as you can, try to observe and record the routing from the chain sprocket to the sheaves and also the routing quadrant/attach points before you take the steering chain/cable off. If the cable doesn’t cross over itself inside the pedestal, the steering works, but turn the wheel to port and the boat goes right and vice-versa. And because the two sheaves are off-set a bit fore and aft, if you route the crossed cable to wrong sheaves, then the cable will rub against itself inside the pedestal. If routed to the sheaves correctly, there is a small gap inside the pedestal between the port and starboard steering cable where it crosses.

While I was at it, another item that caught my attention was the molded plastic housing into which the gear shift and throttle handles are set. This is the piece that Ian McGain photographed and was unable to remove the four screws from. I had better luck as my screws came out. While I was researching Yacht Specialties pedestals in preparation for my disassembly project, I read somewhere (probably deep in this forum’s archives) that people have had problems with the plastic housing breaking inside where the shift and throttle lever shafts and cables are anchored to the housing. The accounts cite that if a cable anchor or throttle handle breaks free inside, one might not be able to (say) shift out of forward into reverse. Or the throttle might get stuck at full (or idle). Or the broken-loose part could jam in the steering chain. Any of which would be a heart stopper for sure if the failure occurred (say) after committing to the final turn into a berth. When I had my part removed from the pedestal, I did discover the beginnings of a stress crack near one of the cable anchor points. The web references said that this pedestal part is no longer available and a casting shop would have to custom-make a replacement. I decided instead to reinforce all the potentially suspect areas by encasing/epoxying them with custom bent u-channels I made from stainless steel sheet metal. Then I poured in lots of West Systems epoxy all around to ensure that nothing could possibly ever break apart.

Back to your harrowing few moments after the steering failed, your narative rereinforced the wisdom of my decision after reinstalling the pedestal and steering system, to also check out that emergency tiller would function. But when I went to fit it to the rudder post, I found that there was absolutely no way to attach it ... zip, nada. On the boat, there was still the log book of a cruise to Mexico made in 1991. Off the coast of Ensinada, the steering failed and the owner had to be towed in. Repairs took a couple of weeks. (But probably the owner wasn't in a hurry anyway and Tequilla was cheap back then.) I expect that the Mexican yard never put in the fitting for the emergency tiller. Why the owner and subsequent owners never corrected is beyond be. I made a fix and the emergency tiller slips on to the post fine while the boat isn't moving. But your experience has prompted me to practice fitting the emergency tiller the next time I go out. I might find its not so easy when the rudder post is rotating back and forth due to waves and rolling motion pushing the rudder around. Better to discover now that maybe a modification should be made now than making discovery during a real emergency.

regards,rardi



rardi
1980 Cherubini Hunter 36
San Francisco Bay
rardiH36, Oct 30, 2007 Report
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[heritage]

I replaced by Yacht Specialties pedestal with a salvaged Edson pedestal for a couple of hundred $. The pedestal bolt holes didn't match, so needed a bit of epoxy filling and redrilling to install. Replacing the pc head was not an option for me in that the pedestal base had a bad case of aluminum corrosion. It is nice to have an Edson where parts are still available. Also I wanted the tall Edson U-shaped handrail that I couldn't adapt to the YP.