Our Lewmar Cobra steering system has performed flawlessly for us in our travels. However, while Gray was working a new autopilot installation (a project that seems to go on forever), he discovered the stop ring had been torn. Calls to Lewmar helped us sort out the most likely cause. When the steering wheel reaches the ends of its range, its mechanical advantage is the strongest. Our former autopilot had a habit of going berserk and pounding the wheel against its stops. It must have done that so much that the stop ring parted.
Hanse did not make changing the stop ring easy. In addition to controlling the rudder’s range of motion, the ring also serves as the backing plate for the steering pedestal. To make the job more interesting, the throttle and transmission cables were run through the old ring. Almost all of the wiring in the steering pedestal was also run through the ring, but Gray had already pulled all that out as part of the autopilot work. Gray was able to remove the ring without removing the steering pedestal thanks to the copious amounts of caulk holding the pedestal in place even though the bolts holding the ring were removed. Large portions of the boat’s interior seem to be fabricated from caulk. Since there is plenty of slack in the steering and transmission cables, Gray decided to route them around the new ring and cut the old ring in half to get it clear. That seemed easier than disconnecting the cables from the throttle/transmission lever, pulling them out of the old ring, refishing them through the steering column and reconnecting them. The hardest part was cleaning all the old caulk off the bolts before reinstalling them. Even with the assistance of some scary yellow Dominican solvent (labeled entirely in Spanish, of course), it still took a while to get the bolts clean. Old caulk will prevent the new caulk from sealing properly and would cause the installation to leak.
Coming soon, an update on the autopilot installation project!
Cindy and Gray
