steering wheel centering

[Pat MacDonald]

Center moved about 20 degrees on my 6 spoked edson steering wheel. We took the steering wheel off to replace the auto pilot while on a mooring in very choppy water. Wheel came off fine and went back on fine but had a real problem with swinging rudder while wheel off. When we put wheel back on (locknut in place) put our piece of black tape in center where it has been for years and left boat on mooring for a couple of days. Came back to boat to go sailing and found boat was only going straight with the black tape off to the right about 20 degrees. We put a piece of white tape on new center to see if it was slipping further but it did not. Had no other problems went sailing in 10-15 knot winds. Boat sailed great but center never moved back to Black tape. Do I have a new steering wheel center or a bigger problem??
Thanks
Pat - Beautiful day

 

[petersea]

Did you change the rudder cable ? ? It sounds like the rudder and wheel position are not in sync so some how the position changed. My suggestion is to check the cable and reset rudder to center and reset wheel to center. Check cable for tightness at rudder quadrant. Maybe the chain jumped a tooth in the console not really sure what happened but what I suspect is you now have more travel in one direction then the other to reach hard over on the rudder. A reset should solve everything.

 

[Bob Poff]

Keyway

If your wheel uses a woodruff key, is there more than one keyway slot on the hub shaft. My Yacht Specialties pedestal has two for some reason.

When putting the wheel back on in the spring I need to check that I'm in the correct one by spinning the wheel to each stop and then checking that center is where I think it is.

 

[Benny]

If you have rack and pinion steering just check that the woodruff key is intact and in place.