Hydrive installation - not off to a good start

[Crunchy]

Installation manual states "you have been provided with two large spacers and two small ones....."

Apparently this is no longer correct, you get 3 small spacers and 1 large spacer....

[captain rednut]

hey crunchy
Ive been fitting hydrive 25 years and they have always only ever come with 1x large spacer and 3x small ones which will fit any outboard, the adjusting nuts supplied will accommodate the system to be centered, Ive never required 2x large spacers to center a bullhorn, normally only the one large spacer is used only. and whilst your fitting it over the weekend and need to talk to someone to answer any queries please call me Jim 0418748023

[Tracker]

SPOT ON. It also helps to have a few extra hands when filling and bleeding,and follow the instructions to the letter.The hydrive is a good system when setup correctly.


hey crunchy
Ive been fitting hydrive 25 years and they have always only ever come with 1x large spacer and 3x small ones which will fit any outboard, the adjusting nuts supplied will accommodate the system to be centered, Ive never required 2x large spacers to center a bullhorn, normally only the one large spacer is used only. and whilst your fitting it over the weekend and need to talk to someone to answer any queries please call me Jim 0418748023

[tenzing]

hey crunchy
Ive been fitting hydrive 25 years and they have always only ever come with 1x large spacer and 3x small ones which will fit any outboard, the adjusting nuts supplied will accommodate the system to be centered, Ive never required 2x large spacers to center a bullhorn, normally only the one large spacer is used only. and whilst your fitting it over the weekend and need to talk to someone to answer any queries please call me Jim 0418748023
OUTSTANDING reply.
Wish I could deal with some people like you during my work day Jim. Good on ya
Cheers
Brendan

[Crunchy]

Thanks guys, you're right Captain R. It doesn't look like I'm going to need it, I feel a bit bad about my vent last night, was just disappointed at the time of opening my new present! However their instruction manual is 10 years old and in need of an update.

My biggest drama today was locating loctite primer T.....not kidding 8 different shops. So I got the bullhorn on, the hoses run, the fillings locktited into the helm and cylinder, the helm holes drilled and old holes filled, tomorrow I connect it all up and do the bleed thingy.

I do have a question....

The T fittings into the cylinder only went in about 2 1/2 turns.....I only did it by hand as they got real tight quickly and the instructions say over and over "don't over tighten". I just hope it's enough as it doesn't seem right?

Cheers C

Ps I think hooking up the tillers is going to be a bit of a pain, would you normally use the tiller hole with the plug in it? How does that plug come out....




One question

[captain rednut]

hi
Loctite primer is not necessary if it it a new system which it is, and i agree the manuals are defiantly old and require updating to avoid these problems occurring. The bleeder T pieces procedure is wind in until firm and then continue one more full turn until they are at the required position using the green loctite provided . The reason the manual states information which is encouraging people to perform installation lightly is because some people only have a big hammer and a 2 foot long set of stilsens in there garage so you could imagine what i have seen, brand new cylinders stripped threads and bent shafts and the best one that we see regularly is when people remove there steering wheel they get there mate to pull on the wheel whilst the other one belts it repeatably with a hammer damaging the alloy thread and bending the shaft again making the helm unit unrepairable. again crunchy ring me if you require assistance even on a Sunday.
regards Jim

[johncar]

the best one that we see regularly is when people remove there steering wheel they get there mate to pull on the wheel whilst the other one belts it repeatably with a hammer damaging the alloy thread and bending the shaft again making the helm unit unrepairable. again crunchy ring me if you require assistance even on a Sunday.
regards Jim

Yes this is a sore point so often I find a helm steering wheel nut that seems like it was tightened by Hercules himself and hence wheel siezed on. Please only tighten these enough to stop any freeplay on the shaft and that's all. A light smear of anti sieze or good marine grease on the shaft and it should always come off without having to damage it.

[Fed]

After a quarter of a century I thought mine would be tight but luckily it had a hub and a ball joint puller made short work of it.
85308

[Spaniard_King]

4" grinder is pretty quick too :o

[Crunchy]

Yep already had the grinder out, to get the old cable out somehow..also had to hacksaw the steering wheel off but have managed to recycle it now.

Garry did you get my PM? I wanted an expert to do this for me!

I have a bad feeling that I haven't screwed the t-fittings in far enough....time will tell....

I couldn't finish the job today as the tiller arms bind and I cannot get full turn in one direction, I think that anyone fitting a yammy 90A 2st will have the same issues...the shape of the motor tiller coneector is such that the flat bar tiller of the cylinder cannot move through the full range. I will have to take both the motor tiller connecter thingy ( that's the correct technical term I believe) and the tiller arm that came with the unit to work and ask the engineer to do some mods.

So, that's super strong locktight right, but I may have to redo the t-fittings....can they be undone?

PS C.R I do wish I'd rung ya when doing up the t-fittings!

[Spaniard_King]

Yeh Just went back and found it... 2 weeks behind in my work so it may not have been suitable and I would have talked ya out of hydrive;D

[Crunchy]

Slack prick ::) (kidding) yeh I started out wanting to go seastar but the hole in my dash was exactly the right size for the hydrive helm so that clinched it....and the fact I was able to call them with a few questions...much of a muchness I reckon....

[LittleSkipper]

Yeh Just went back and found it... 2 weeks behind in my work so it may not have been suitable and I would have talked ya out of hydrive;D

What brand of system do you recommend Garry?

[Spaniard_King]

For reliability and strength and a unit where the hoses do not move with the ram you cant go past the Hynautic K6 system.

[Fed]

2 1/2 turns doesn't seem right to me Crunchy, I'd be asking the manufacturers if no one else here can add some input. Are you sure you didn't cross thread them, easy to do with a fine tapered thread?

[Crunchy]

Defintaely not, I took my time and was super careful....they warn over and over again about not cross-threading and using too much force....I think I may have been too careful if anything! Hopefulluy it is emough with the locktight but yes I do fear the dreaded air leak.

The engineer at work is going to cut both my engine tiller bar and the hydrive tiller bar today (To stop the interference as could not acheive full turn to port)....I hope this thread may assist anyone else installing a hydrive on a 90A in the future....will post some pictures of the issue. Looking at the Hynuatic that SK was talking about I would say that the set up of the tiller arms is easier as it is similar to cable steering. I also have a suspicion that Seastar may have been easier too as it doesn't use a drag link arm by the looks but has a pin located centrally on the cylinder unit...pics will help explain.

I'll get there eventually....

Cheers
C

[Fed]

Is that brand new $200 Teleflex helm & cable starting to look good crunchy?

[Crunchy]

Is that brand new $200 Teleflex helm & cable starting to look good crunchy?

LOL yep...thought about that a few times over the W/E I can tell you....but I would not be able to fit a new cable without lifting the motor and wasn't keen to do that....

Our engineer has done a bang up job on my tiller connector remodeling job so I will fit it tonight and if I now have full turning range will fill with oil and see how we go. Now I just need to find the steepest hill I can in Brisbane to get the cylinder above the helm since with a centre consul set up the helm is about 1.5M above the cylinder at present!

[Spaniard_King]

LOL yep...thought about that a few times over the W/E I can tell you....but I would not be able to fit a new cable without lifting the motor and wasn't keen to do that....

Our engineer has done a bang up job on my tiller connector remodeling job so I will fit it tonight and if I now have full turning range will fill with oil and see how we go. Now I just need to find the steepest hill I can in Brisbane to get the cylinder above the helm since with a centre consul set up the helm is about 1.5M above the cylinder at present!


What on earth for?? are you not going to bleed it ?? Don't tell me the manual says to get cylinder above helm... BWAHAHAHAHA ....not required just hook the oil up via the hose fitting to the helm turn the bottle upside down and cut the ass out making it like a funnel

The key to bleeding the system is you need to bleed the hoses only (move engine so that piston is fully over to the side which your bleeding so there is no oil or air in that side... you may need to think about it a little) bleed that side then do the same for the other side... 2 people help in this case.

[Crunchy]

:-[Not in the manual but came across quite a few blog entries say it is easier to do if the cylinder is at the highest point....:-[:-[:-[OK then I won't do that.....

Took the T connections off tonight, engineer at work said no way they will be tight enough and will leak air....was able to unscrew by hand so yes indeed I hadn't tightened them up nearly enough.

So how do olives work? Reusable? They don't look damaged....they seem to work by biting into the hose?

Cheers
C

[rowanda]

hey mate, I hope it all works out for you in the end. I must say I have heard alot of people say once you have hydraulic you won't ever want a cable again....I can now see why, love my Seastar...and love that I had it installed (sorry) thought about doing it myself but glad I didn't now

[Spaniard_King]

Tighten them well if they leak change them...crank them a bit more than you normally would.. I have used them more than once.. especially when there isn't enough tubing to cut off and replace

[Crunchy]

hey mate, I hope it all works out for you in the end. I must say I have heard alot of people say once you have hydraulic you won't ever want a cable again....I can now see why, love my Seastar...and love that I had it installed (sorry) thought about doing it myself but glad I didn't now


Thanks mate, geez I hope so, been a frustrating process...the only upside is that I will have a pretty good understanding of the system once it's up and running.

So I re-installed the tiller arms and now have full turn lock to lock .....good job on the mod by our engineer at work. Now trying to clean the "old" Locktight off the T-fittings (using that primer I didn't need)

It continues......

[Crunchy]

Today was "Bleeding the system" day, what a FU that turned out to be.....

From the user guide
"A special plastic bottle cap with bleeder hose attached has been supplied. This connects to the 1 Litre oil bottle supplied"

NO IT DOESN'T! It kinder conects but is a piss poor fitting so 20% of the oil goes on the deck as the bloody thing leaks. (On both the supplied bottles not just on one)......you would think that after spending ~$900 you would get a cap that actually fits wouldn't ya? As it happens, the cap does fit nicely onto a nearly empty bottle of Inox I have so I guess I'll use that.

Again from the instructions
"Connect this hose to the side of the cylinder attached to the PORT side fitting of the HELM unit. This is the fitting that will pump oil when the wheel is rotated ANTI-CLOCK-WISE."

Call me stupid but to me this means turn the steering wheel anti-clockwise and open the bleeder valve on the PORT side of the boat....yes I know, now that I've read it again and again and noticed the word "HELM" in there and remembered that the port side fitting of the helm is actually connected to the starboard side cylinder fitting....but too late...opened the wrong bleeder (Quite a common occurance I see from the blogs) and pumped a heap of air into the system. Why the hell don't they say "Open the starborad bleeder when turning the wheel anti-clockwise"

Yep go on have a laugh then at poor ol Crunchy.....

So the plan is - buy more oil (A heap of it), put it into a 5L Innox container and try again....

The Hydrive installation manual is pretty crap if you are not familar with this process...and beleive me when I say I've read it ten times......like I say, call me stupid!

[johncar]

I feel your pain Crunchy, installation manuals should never be written by someone who knows how to install the system. someone who doesn't would write a better manual I reckon. The last system I bled because I upgraded the hoses was a seastar and pretty sure I just bought some generic fluid from Wynum Marine. Those bottles worked well from memory and I don't remember having any dramas, just connected the tube, turned the bottle upside down and pin pricked the bottom of the bottle. Pretty sure the better half was helping so no divorce anyway. The seastar manual may have been better written but I do remember having to think about what they were saying through the bleeding procedure.
Steering come up excellent as yours will too.
Try and cheer up mate.

[Fed]

I'm not laughing very much Crunchy, just a little.

It might be better to cut the hoses & replace the second hand olives before you attack with all new oil, both you & the olives could be weeping.

Did you finish up getting more than 2 1/2 turns out of the fittings, could be embarrassing to blow one of them out under hard turning or when the NFB is straining it's arse off in a straight line.

Getting confidence is a bitch when people sow seeds of doubt eh?

[Spaniard_King]

I guess your learning from the experience :)

[Crunchy]

Well this job is still not complete....after setting up for the bleeding session using a much larger container and a heap more oil so that there is plenty to feed through in one go we couldn't get the air out of the system, there was a leak...found this to be on the nuts connecting the tubes to the helm, they were just not tight enough. Fixed this and did manage to finally bleed the system properly....yahoo all looking good at long last.... but when doing the "stress test" (I.e. max pressure to port and starboard) the wheel kept turning and I noticed the oil level in the helm had gone down....captain we have a leak! I'm going to guess that this is due to the L-connectors into the helm not being tight enough so oil is leaking through the threads....that bloody hydrive manual with its incessant "Don't over tighten" warning over and over again....well FU hydrive you can also bloody under-tighten too. So this W/E job is to drain the oil, pull the helm back out, take out the L connectors, clean all the locktight off the threads, put it all back together again, this time ignoring the damned instructions and tighten the bjesus out them and see how we go.

So whats the fishing been like?

[Spaniard_King]

Arn't you glad you did this all ya self :)

[Crunchy]

Arn't you glad you did this all ya self :)

Its been a fun time allright!

[Mister]

The thing Hy-Drive have never allowed for is gravity :) Some hy-drive setups are absolutely impossible to bleed unless of course they defy gravity and that ain't possible, not unless of course you turn the world upside down.

There are those here that can appreciate where crunchy is coming from :) there are others that don't want to understand the real issues!

[wrxhoon]

. So this W/E job is to drain the oil, pull the helm back out, take out the L connectors, clean all the locktight off the threads, put it all back together again, this time ignoring the damned instructions and tighten the bjesus out them and see how we go.

So whats the fishing been like?[/QUOTE]

I don't know why you are having so much trouble, it's very easy to install and bleed .
Whatever you do don't overtighten the L connectors , you will end up spliting the housing!! Do them fairly tight with a spanner ( not just finger tight) and use the threadlocker they supply, if they don't buy some locktite and use that, they will seal. The olives seal very well , never had any leak.
I prefer the Hydrive cylinder because its brass ( unless they gone to ally now) but I like the seastar helm, I have used both systems , both work well and both are easy to install and bleed. You don't need new fluid just recover that fluid that comes out filter and re-use , its new fuild .

[marto78]

I have been thinking about installing hydraulic steering in my boat for some time now and would just like to thank you Crunchy for this very informative thread.
It is better to learn from someone elses mistakes IMO ;D

Cheers Marto

[WalrusLike]

Crunchy I think we two are clones.... Reading your experiences and thoughts is like remembering any of my DIY experiences.

At least as we both know.... at the end of it all you will know your boat better and will be confident of its reliability. Good luck with it.

[Crunchy]

I don't know why you are having so much trouble, it's very easy to install and bleed .
Whatever you do don't overtighten the L connectors , you will end up spliting the housing!! Do them fairly tight with a spanner ( not just finger tight) and use the threadlocker they supply, if they don't buy some locktite and use that, they will seal. The olives seal very well , never had any leak.
I prefer the Hydrive cylinder because its brass ( unless they gone to ally now) but I like the seastar helm, I have used both systems , both work well and both are easy to install and bleed. You don't need new fluid just recover that fluid that comes out filter and re-use , its new fuild .

I know all that, I'm having trouble because this is my first installation and I have taken the instructions too literally, they say at least 5 times in the main book and the extra sheets "Dont over tighten..." but they dont say what that actually means. Also the "m" kit did not fit my motor as promised...I beleive they know that as this must of happened before. The instructions are outdated and poorly written, instead of re-writing them they just add new pieces of paper, I think about 5 or 6 extra sheets in the kit...they are in the bin right now.... If I ever need to insatll one again I'll know exactly what to do!



I have been thinking about installing hydraulic steering in my boat for some time now and would just like to thank you Crunchy for this very informative thread.
It is better to learn from someone elses mistakes IMO ;D

Cheers Marto

Pleased to be of assistance, once (If?) I have it up and running and water tested I plan on doing a summary of my experience.


Crunchy I think we two are clones.... Reading your experiences and thoughts is like remembering any of my DIY experiences.

At least as we both know.... at the end of it all you will know your boat better and will be confident of its reliability. Good luck with it.

Yeh that is the ONLY positive....I should be able to make good most repairs and maintenance myself once this is all over.

My real job is behind a desk so there will always be some kind of learning curve when I do mechanical stuff, generally its good therapy but this time it definately has dragged on a little too long!

[Crunchy]

Quite often when I do a search on AF looking for some information I get disappointed when a thread ends without a conclusion so thought I would come back and briefly finish this off in case someone searching "Hydrive" or "Hydraulic steering" comes across it.

* I am very pleased I went with hydraulic steering, no regrets at all in the end about the time or cost involved in going from cable to hydraulic, its just so so so much better to drive now. So don't listen to people who say "Stick with cable they are much the same", its just not true. I don't have any experience with NFB steering though so cannot comment on that option compared to hydraulic.

* The hydrive system has worked perfectly now for nearly 2 years and hundreds of engine hours, installing it was not a pleasant experience but once I got it up and running I have been very pleased with it. I have not had to top up the oil in two years.

* Have a go yourself but be prepared to learn the hard way - it took me 4 weeks to get it working properly when an expert could do it in a few hours. It should be easy but it may not be, the issues I had were:
- Instruction manual sucked arse and led me astray by going on and on about not over tightening the fittings, they need to be tight just not wrenched to pieces.
- Bleeding was not easy for a first timer, I eventually got there by getting two mates to help and 5 x more oil than the instructions suggested, I could do it with my eyes closed now.
- Despite the model number supposedly being right for my motor it did not fit without some modification to the steering hook (I.e. had to saw the bendy bit off).

In summary if tossing up about going to hydraulic I say do it, if no patience or mechanical aptitude get a professional to help but nothing like the satisfaction of DIY in when it all comes together.

Happy steering
Crunchy