Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, 272 Sailfish, UPDATE FIXED!

[Andrew93]

The steering on my Sailfish is in need of help. When I bought the boat I noticed the bolts on the tie bar were very loose, so I tightened them up, there were not any heim joints. I had one engine overheat 2 weeks ago (new thermostats and hasn't been a problem since) and I trimmed one motor up to get back in on plane. This cause the black triangle brackets that the tie bar bolts to to bend and next time out one broke. I put a new steering extension bracket in place, kept the tie bar bolts loose and figured I would mess with it over the winter.

Yesterday the bolt that holds the hydraulic cylinder to the starboard motor steering bracket fell out. I managed to get to back in place with a lot of struggling. Now I realized I have to fix it right for the rest of the season, I pulled the boat and want to get it squared away this week. Those triangle steering bracket extensions do not let the hydraulic steering bracket to sit flat and this caused its bolt to bend and work its way out. I need to know how this is supposed to be setup, I was planning on buying the seastar tie bar kit HO6001 and that would solve all of my problems, and this would eliminate this triangle steering bracket extensions, but with the steering suffer and become too difficult? It almost looks like this was not setup right to begin with and just want to make sure the $300 in parts I am looking to buy is what I need.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!


Sorry for all the grease! Evidence of the struggle in the water trying to save a day of boating!


Looking straight in on the starboard motor


Looking at the starboard motor on the side, you can see how those extension brackets will not allow the cylinder bracket to sit flat


Same view of the other motor

 

[lime4x4]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

My offshore uses twin yamaha 150 with seastar steering which is basically like yours except my tie-bar allows either engine to be tilted up.

 

[seasick]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

My offshore uses twin yamaha 150 with seastar steering which is basically like yours except my tie-bar allows either engine to be tilted up.

The bolts were 'loose' for a reason and that was to allow either motor to trim up or down without placing too much strain on the fittings.The tie bar may not be the correct model, although it worked in a way.
I guess you are going to have to replace the tie bar and brackets with the correct parts.
You should also find out the proper toe in/out for your motor arrangement so that you can set it correctly when you install the new parts. That info should be in the rigging manual but getting a hold of one for your year hull may be a challenge.

 

[Andrew93]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

After hours and hours of mindless google searching I think I found out the problem. This setup is considered the "old tie bar" system by seastar. It used a different cylinder bracket assembly. The cylinder must have been replaced at one point and "hacked" into placed with he existing tie bar instead of being the new setup, or rebuilding the old cylinder. I ordered the HO6001 tie bar assembly.

Seasick, I will look to see if I can find some information on the proper toe in/toe out. I know Grady is good about have that info, I have reached out tot hem a few times on other matters this year, but feel bad by keep contacting them! Hopefully I will get all oft he parts by friday!

 

[ocnslr]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

If your set both of the trim zincs to centerline, you can get the boat up on plane in calm water and detach the tie-bar. The engines will take a natural position when running that way, and you can then reattach the tie-bar so it holds that natural relationship between the engines.

No, I didn't believe it either until I did it. Hydrodynamically it makes sense.

Brian

 

[seasick]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

If your set both of the trim zincs to centerline, you can get the boat up on plane in calm water and detach the tie-bar. The engines will take a natural position when running that way, and you can then reattach the tie-bar so it holds that natural relationship between the engines.

No, I didn't believe it either until I did it. Hydrodynamically it makes sense.

Brian

ocnslr
I have head this before but have the darnedest time accepting it as a good idea.
Even if the motors assume some sort of natural alignment, how does one know that that position is optimal?

I get the willies just thinking about running wit the engines not connected

If this were a car and you could do the same thing, I would expect the tires to run straight but we all know that a small amount of toein is optimal. In my mind, I feel that the same applies to twin outboards

 

[Andrew93]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

When searching what the best toe in/out should be I found this discussion on the Whaler Forum.

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/001476.html

Some good info and discussion and worth reading all the way through I think. I would at first think that removing the tie bar under way would cause major control problems, but sounds like it works. The bay I am in has a nice space to do this first thing in the morning, but I would be afraid of running out of room. Would coming off plane and slowing without the tie bar cause erratic engine behavior? Maybe reduce the rpms of the loose motor first?

 

[1998sailfish]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

Yamaha has a standard toe in distance for twins. So does Evinrude. Contact a yamaha dealer locally I remember that my 272 sailfish came from a dealer on the Cape. The dealer will give you the correct offset. Don't run the engines with the steering disconnected ( i think I was understanding that instruction correctly ) Do you really think that the dealer uses this method for their installs ?????

Odd that the extended tail off the Yamaha steering pivot was used. My 1998 272 Sailfish had no such additional tab. It is obvious that the configuration as installed would cause accelerated wear. Shame on the rigger :-|

 

[Tucker]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

I have the exact same setup as firemedic. Yea, I have the extensions on the steering bracket. The steering ram is suppose to pivot down when the motor is tilted up. I'm guessing the brackets that hold the steering ram are frozen and in need of grease. What did the steering bracket extension hit that caused it to bend? Looks like the ram. Those brackets need to come off occasionally and greased. No heim jount required. the swivel tilt bracket works fine. When I bought my boat I took my entire system apart. The ram was leaking anyway. Grady told me that both engines should be set up parallel, no towing required. Those brackets can be a real PIA to get off. On THT I saw pics of guys heating them with torch, wacking them with a maul, etc. I just bought a small 2-leg wheel puller from Harbor Freight and they came right off. In the first photo the tie bar is not adjusted correctly. It is adjusted too long; but maybe the bent bracket makes it appear that way. I would be hesitant about changing the system. Sea Star was very helpful and I downloaded their manual. There was spec sheet showing the exact same setup you and I have. Couple observations: I would flush out that old caked up grease out of the motor fittings. Yea, you can get to the fittings behind the steering ram. Need to tilt, turn and maybe get a 90 deg adapter for your grease gun, I use the standard straight nozzle on the gun. The rigging tube should be sealed on the motor or you get water inside the rigging tube an it starts to mess things up (been there). Yam has a molded plastic upgrade that is fairly inexpensive and much better designed. The rigging tubing threads into the new fitting. This is a pretty big job because ALL cables need to be removed and threaded into the new fitting. Back the ram, I noticed a little too much slop in my steering and had to really look hard for a leak. The Sea Star fluid is clear. I replace my seals and flush the whole system with aircraft hydraulic fluid. It's much cheaper that the Sea Star fluid and it's red. You have very simple system, it's pretty full proof but just needs some luvin..

 

[seasick]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

I managed to find a copy of a later model rigging guide but I would suspect that the same guidelines apply to older models as well.
Yamaha states that twin motors should be towed in. That means that if you measure the spacing on the front of the motors and then measure the spacing on the skegs, the difference between the two should be about an inch or a bit less. In other words, the motors are angled towards each other at the rear. Now here is a fact I wasn't aware of: Yamaha says that when toed in correctly, the two wakes of the motors under speed should meet at a point 25 to 50 feet aft. That's cool.

 

[Andrew93]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

It looks like the steering ram I have is the wrong one for this setup, on page 153 and 154 of this link you can see how the brackets on the cylinder is completely different.

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/us ... rStrg(v4_0)Parts.pdf

I think a newer style ram was placed on this and although it worked for awhile, it caused a lot of premature wear and now it has to be addressed. I think those brackets being bent is from me tightening down on those bolts and then the motors being tried up uneven. I hope I have all of the parts that I need, I will be down tomorrow night and I will make sure to take some pictures on how the process goes.

From some of the articles I read, some in the whaler forum, I understand toe-in as the props pointing away from each other. I did also read about the distance of where the wake meets.

Although the steering is working as is now is, I hope to get is 100% right for the weekend!

Andrew

 

[ROBERTH]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! 272 Sailfish

If you disconnect the rod from one side, will the rod rotate on the threads freely? I am pretty sure that they turn on the threads when tilting up the motors.

 

[Andrew93]

Re: Twin 225 OX66 Steering Woes, With Photos! UPDATE FIXED!

Got the new parts and got everything installed last night and this morning. Everything looks and works great! If anyone has any problems with their old setup, this was a pretty easy install, although it was the root of my problems, I had the newer cylinder and mounting on there so this tie bar kit went on with ease. No more play in the starboard motor, everything is nice and tight!

I aligned them 1/4" toed in for now (props pointing away from each other) and I will attempt disconnecting the tie bar one day if conditions and manpower permit. I read some posts on THT that stated Grady says they always send them out parallel, and either that or 1/4" toe in seemed optimal.

Thanks for all the help as usual!