This sprin

Obviously no one wants to loose steering, no one; but reasonable maintenance should prescribe disassembly of our simple cable systems to check components. We know of failures and near failures and the fix is straight forward.
The steering failure that caused the


At left, photos (taken of my gear!)show a near failure of the bronze sheave pins. Edson now makes the replacement pins of stainless steel/a harder material!
Plenty of time has been spent on projects in my lazarette but I did not catch the wear on the sheave pins until I took the cable system apart to INSPECT.. Disassembly of the cables to work in the lazarette allowed me to feel the sheaves, now without tension on them, and the obvious 'wobble' scared me. The TOP photo shows a tilting of the sheave. Visually, that should alert anyone that there is a problem. The MIDDLE photo shows the pin was ALMOS; the evidence of ONE sheave pulling one way and another pulling against it....but almost worn completely through. This would have been disaster. The BOTTOM photo shows 2 Fair pins, 1 Bad pin and 1 absolutely Dangerous pin.
Replacement of the Oilite bushings in the sheave costs only a few bucks, so have a shop to that for you as well.
OK, so your not going to cruise far. How about when you are turning into your marina under power and you have to turn past a few of those nice expensive power boats. Want to loose steering then?
(originally posted 9/20/06)
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