FIRE UP
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Hey Gang,
Been a bit since I've been on here so, a re-hello to all. Here's a short story. The kids were visiting us here in Havasu for a weekend of fun and R & R. My sons family has a 3 yr old and a 1.5 yr old. Both of which were SEREIOUSLY excited to go on Grandpa's and Grandmas boat! . They were philandering around on it while we were prepping to take it out for the day. Everything was running smoothly until I notice the motor ( Yamaha 350HP 5.3L 4-stroke) was tilted all the way to one side. Hmmmm. I never leave it like that. I was walking around outside the boat when I noticed this situation.
My son was in the boat loading stuff. The truck was all hooked up and the families were almost walking out the door to get all loaded up for a drive down to the state park launch ramp. I asked him to turn the steering wheel to straighten the motor. He said, I am, but the motor wasn't turning. Hmmmm. I was on the drivers side (starboard) of the motor and thought I'd just give it a shove to straighten it out. It move quite easily which, I thought was a tad odd. As I walked around to the rear of the motor, Ruh-roh, what's this????????????? I giant spurt of oil was on the concrete to the left and rear of the motor. CRAP!!!!!!!
About one minutes worth of investigation revealed a blown power steering hose, one of two. It has blown just outside of the compression portion of the fitting that screws to the steering ram/cylinder. Now, the big question is, just how and why, did it blow, right there on the trailer, in its home parking spot? Is it possible one of the little tykes was turning the steering wheel 'till it came to the end of a turn and tried to turn it farther? Was it ready to blow and just by chance, either me pushing the motor by hand or my son trying to steer it back to straight, caused it to blow? I'm not sure we'll ever know. But, the point here is, it blew right there at home.
If this would have happened with the boat in the water, ANYWHERE in the water, near the docks, off loading from the trailer, docking or putting it back onto the trailer after a days outing, near other boats during any type of close-quarters manipulation (happens a lot in Havasu), it would have easily become A DISASTER! Like many of you, we have the Seastar Power Assist Hydraulic Steering System. What this means in case some of you are not aware, is that there is an electric/hydraulic pump under the helm that provides power assistance when your steering wheel is turned in either direction. There are actually two pumps. One is the HELM pump which is just under the dash and your steering wheel is connected to it. It's basically a hand powered pump and, in the event of a failure of the electric side, you're still able to steer the boat hydraulically, albeit with quite a bit more effort involved.
The second pump is the SeaStar electric pump that for the most part, is also right there under the helm. The two pumps are connected with hydraulic lines and a compensator line that allows for return fluid to the reservoir which is in the helm pump. Then there are two hoses connected to the bottom of the SeaStar pump, that go down into the floor, and turn towards the rear and run on the top side of the starboard pontoon. They emerge out of a hole in the center splash well and then have a large downward loop and then come back up to the steering ram. On mine, the hose on the port side is marked with a red band and the one of the starboard side is marked with a green band.
The one with the red band blew. I know a little bit about how hose ends are made up, crimped, clamped, swaged and all that. Soooo, I simply removed that end of the hose and cut it right close to the hole which, was just outside of the swaged compression. I took that end to the vice and went to work on very carefully removing the swage and crimped barrel. I was successful at that and revealed what I thought was odd. The short brass thick wall tube, about 5/16 in diameter, was smooth, with no barbs on it. Hmmmm. I'd have bet my house that there would have been barbs on that shorty.
Well, I figured what the heck, lets make this work. I took my Dremel and with a tiny cut-off wheel, proceeded to make my own very shallow barbs. That short nipple that the hose goes over, is around 3/4" long. So, about four home made barbs would be enough. I then got two very small hose clamps and slid them over the hose end. Put the hose on the nipple and slid the hose clamps into place and tightened the bejesus out of both of them. I re-installed the fitting onto the ram and we tested the steering. Waaaaaay sluggish! So, I didn't have any of the steering fluid that's used in the system so, down to my local Bennington dealer. I told them what happened and what I did to repair and all I needed was some hydraulic steering fluid.
The mechanic was listening to my story. He walked and said, nice work, but, IT WILL NEVER HOLD!!!! He stated that, that system can easily develop over 1,500 lbs pressure and my home made end, would blow right off that fitting. He said it might hold at idle. But, get out and do a hard turn under power and, that's when that hose could let go. NOT GOOD! So, they convinced me to order up a new hose. And that new hose wouldn't come in for 2-3 days since it was a Saturday when all this happened. So much for a nice multi-family outing in Grandpas and Grandmas nice Bennington 26' tri-toon!!
Fast forward a couple of days. First off, let me throw in here that, you can't order just one hose. They come in PAIRS! Each hose, which in our case, was/is 24' long and rings out at $128 EACH!!!! So, over $260 wrapped up in just two hoses. That's the way the company works. But, if there's an upside to this part of the story, it's that if I'm gonna tear into replacing a high pressure hose, then replace BOTH hoses WHILE half the boat is torn apart to do the job. So there's that. At least my R model 26' footer has removable upper side moldings that allow for access to the underside of the flooring. There's a zillion (actually about 30) 3/8" bolts and nuts that have to be removed to allow for that molding to drop out of the way.
Once that's done, you simply determine which hose end must come off the SeaStar pump and remove it. In our case, identifying it was easy, it was the one with the red band on it. It then slides out the bottom of the floor and you go outside and then simply remove the hose, all 24' of it and that's that. When it comes time to install the new hose, everything is done in reverse. The only real tough part was the last 4'-5' near the rear ladder. Access to that is blind. We got it though.
Now, unlike some modern hydraulic systems that self-bleed when a new hose or part is installed, this system IS NOT LIKE THAT. You MUST BLEED the system in a prescribed sequence in order for the entire system to work as it should. That was a bit of a pain but, primarily time consuming, not overly technical. By the way, the Seastar hydraulic oil that shot out and was bled from the system is blue in color. The Quicksilver Hydraulic Steering oil that my dealer sold me, IS RED in color. I asked them about that. They, both the mechanic and the parts counter persons, stated that, Bennington purchases the original Blue hydraulic steering oil in 55 gallon drums and they will not sell to their dealers, any smaller amounts. So, the Quicksilver RED stuff, is what I used and, they assured me that *blending* the two will cause zero issues and that they've been doing it for years. OOOOOk, you say so!
And, since I replaced BOTH hoses and lost some fluid during the blow-out, I picked up at least two quarts of the red. The Seastar manual states that you can "re-use* the old oil, if it's filtered through a screen mesh, like what's used in gasoline filters. I did just that during my bleeding process. By the way, due to me using older BLUE oil and newer RED oil, I now have PURPLE hydraulic steering oil, how about them apples folks!
Anyway, after following the 6-step proceedure for bleeding an entire system, my steering is all better now.
The moral of this story. Folks, our boat is a 2014 and it never sees the sun, unless we're in it and using it. Other than that, it's covered and under a drive under cover so, those hoses are not exposed to the elements on a daily basis. 8 years later and approximately maybe 125-150 hours or so, we blew a power steering hose. We got EXTREMELY LUCKY in the fact it blew right at home and not in the water. Soooo, at the end of this novel you're reading, if you have an older boat, especially one that sees the sun and elements way more than ours does, and has lots of hours on it, do yourself a really, REALLY big favor and do a very close inspection of every inch of those exposed sections of the power steering hoses that you can. If there's even a slight hint of a chafe, wearing, slight cracking or potential failure, do what it takes to get that situation fixed, NOW, before you take your boat out again. From my experience with this, you sure as hell don't want to be out on the water when it happens. If you're the type that has the dealer do this kind of work, that's fine, just get it done, if it needs it. If you do your own work, you're gonna save a ton of money and know the system and replacement will be done correctly. Good luck.
Scott
Been a bit since I've been on here so, a re-hello to all. Here's a short story. The kids were visiting us here in Havasu for a weekend of fun and R & R. My sons family has a 3 yr old and a 1.5 yr old. Both of which were SEREIOUSLY excited to go on Grandpa's and Grandmas boat! . They were philandering around on it while we were prepping to take it out for the day. Everything was running smoothly until I notice the motor ( Yamaha 350HP 5.3L 4-stroke) was tilted all the way to one side. Hmmmm. I never leave it like that. I was walking around outside the boat when I noticed this situation.
My son was in the boat loading stuff. The truck was all hooked up and the families were almost walking out the door to get all loaded up for a drive down to the state park launch ramp. I asked him to turn the steering wheel to straighten the motor. He said, I am, but the motor wasn't turning. Hmmmm. I was on the drivers side (starboard) of the motor and thought I'd just give it a shove to straighten it out. It move quite easily which, I thought was a tad odd. As I walked around to the rear of the motor, Ruh-roh, what's this????????????? I giant spurt of oil was on the concrete to the left and rear of the motor. CRAP!!!!!!!
About one minutes worth of investigation revealed a blown power steering hose, one of two. It has blown just outside of the compression portion of the fitting that screws to the steering ram/cylinder. Now, the big question is, just how and why, did it blow, right there on the trailer, in its home parking spot? Is it possible one of the little tykes was turning the steering wheel 'till it came to the end of a turn and tried to turn it farther? Was it ready to blow and just by chance, either me pushing the motor by hand or my son trying to steer it back to straight, caused it to blow? I'm not sure we'll ever know. But, the point here is, it blew right there at home.
If this would have happened with the boat in the water, ANYWHERE in the water, near the docks, off loading from the trailer, docking or putting it back onto the trailer after a days outing, near other boats during any type of close-quarters manipulation (happens a lot in Havasu), it would have easily become A DISASTER! Like many of you, we have the Seastar Power Assist Hydraulic Steering System. What this means in case some of you are not aware, is that there is an electric/hydraulic pump under the helm that provides power assistance when your steering wheel is turned in either direction. There are actually two pumps. One is the HELM pump which is just under the dash and your steering wheel is connected to it. It's basically a hand powered pump and, in the event of a failure of the electric side, you're still able to steer the boat hydraulically, albeit with quite a bit more effort involved.
The second pump is the SeaStar electric pump that for the most part, is also right there under the helm. The two pumps are connected with hydraulic lines and a compensator line that allows for return fluid to the reservoir which is in the helm pump. Then there are two hoses connected to the bottom of the SeaStar pump, that go down into the floor, and turn towards the rear and run on the top side of the starboard pontoon. They emerge out of a hole in the center splash well and then have a large downward loop and then come back up to the steering ram. On mine, the hose on the port side is marked with a red band and the one of the starboard side is marked with a green band.
The one with the red band blew. I know a little bit about how hose ends are made up, crimped, clamped, swaged and all that. Soooo, I simply removed that end of the hose and cut it right close to the hole which, was just outside of the swaged compression. I took that end to the vice and went to work on very carefully removing the swage and crimped barrel. I was successful at that and revealed what I thought was odd. The short brass thick wall tube, about 5/16 in diameter, was smooth, with no barbs on it. Hmmmm. I'd have bet my house that there would have been barbs on that shorty.
Well, I figured what the heck, lets make this work. I took my Dremel and with a tiny cut-off wheel, proceeded to make my own very shallow barbs. That short nipple that the hose goes over, is around 3/4" long. So, about four home made barbs would be enough. I then got two very small hose clamps and slid them over the hose end. Put the hose on the nipple and slid the hose clamps into place and tightened the bejesus out of both of them. I re-installed the fitting onto the ram and we tested the steering. Waaaaaay sluggish! So, I didn't have any of the steering fluid that's used in the system so, down to my local Bennington dealer. I told them what happened and what I did to repair and all I needed was some hydraulic steering fluid.
The mechanic was listening to my story. He walked and said, nice work, but, IT WILL NEVER HOLD!!!! He stated that, that system can easily develop over 1,500 lbs pressure and my home made end, would blow right off that fitting. He said it might hold at idle. But, get out and do a hard turn under power and, that's when that hose could let go. NOT GOOD! So, they convinced me to order up a new hose. And that new hose wouldn't come in for 2-3 days since it was a Saturday when all this happened. So much for a nice multi-family outing in Grandpas and Grandmas nice Bennington 26' tri-toon!!
Fast forward a couple of days. First off, let me throw in here that, you can't order just one hose. They come in PAIRS! Each hose, which in our case, was/is 24' long and rings out at $128 EACH!!!! So, over $260 wrapped up in just two hoses. That's the way the company works. But, if there's an upside to this part of the story, it's that if I'm gonna tear into replacing a high pressure hose, then replace BOTH hoses WHILE half the boat is torn apart to do the job. So there's that. At least my R model 26' footer has removable upper side moldings that allow for access to the underside of the flooring. There's a zillion (actually about 30) 3/8" bolts and nuts that have to be removed to allow for that molding to drop out of the way.
Once that's done, you simply determine which hose end must come off the SeaStar pump and remove it. In our case, identifying it was easy, it was the one with the red band on it. It then slides out the bottom of the floor and you go outside and then simply remove the hose, all 24' of it and that's that. When it comes time to install the new hose, everything is done in reverse. The only real tough part was the last 4'-5' near the rear ladder. Access to that is blind. We got it though.
Now, unlike some modern hydraulic systems that self-bleed when a new hose or part is installed, this system IS NOT LIKE THAT. You MUST BLEED the system in a prescribed sequence in order for the entire system to work as it should. That was a bit of a pain but, primarily time consuming, not overly technical. By the way, the Seastar hydraulic oil that shot out and was bled from the system is blue in color. The Quicksilver Hydraulic Steering oil that my dealer sold me, IS RED in color. I asked them about that. They, both the mechanic and the parts counter persons, stated that, Bennington purchases the original Blue hydraulic steering oil in 55 gallon drums and they will not sell to their dealers, any smaller amounts. So, the Quicksilver RED stuff, is what I used and, they assured me that *blending* the two will cause zero issues and that they've been doing it for years. OOOOOk, you say so!
And, since I replaced BOTH hoses and lost some fluid during the blow-out, I picked up at least two quarts of the red. The Seastar manual states that you can "re-use* the old oil, if it's filtered through a screen mesh, like what's used in gasoline filters. I did just that during my bleeding process. By the way, due to me using older BLUE oil and newer RED oil, I now have PURPLE hydraulic steering oil, how about them apples folks!
Anyway, after following the 6-step proceedure for bleeding an entire system, my steering is all better now.
The moral of this story. Folks, our boat is a 2014 and it never sees the sun, unless we're in it and using it. Other than that, it's covered and under a drive under cover so, those hoses are not exposed to the elements on a daily basis. 8 years later and approximately maybe 125-150 hours or so, we blew a power steering hose. We got EXTREMELY LUCKY in the fact it blew right at home and not in the water. Soooo, at the end of this novel you're reading, if you have an older boat, especially one that sees the sun and elements way more than ours does, and has lots of hours on it, do yourself a really, REALLY big favor and do a very close inspection of every inch of those exposed sections of the power steering hoses that you can. If there's even a slight hint of a chafe, wearing, slight cracking or potential failure, do what it takes to get that situation fixed, NOW, before you take your boat out again. From my experience with this, you sure as hell don't want to be out on the water when it happens. If you're the type that has the dealer do this kind of work, that's fine, just get it done, if it needs it. If you do your own work, you're gonna save a ton of money and know the system and replacement will be done correctly. Good luck.
Scott
