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Sea Star Power Steering Failures

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bighawkeye

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I have owned my 2575 RCW w/250 HP Yamaha SHO for 3 years now and have experienced power steering issues every year. In one instance I had to have te boat towed back to the marina because the steering was completely gone. I just returned from a week long trip using the boat and had my steering lock up everyday. Besides the hassle of not being able to steer the boat I'm more concerned about the potential for having a serious accident with another boat or person in the water. Has anyone else experienced this with their Sea Star power steering? I'm completely fed up with all the issues I have had with the boat since purchasing it.
 
Have you contacted your dealer? I have not had these issues. ( knock on my wood)
 
I have contacted the dealer. However the two dealerships near me are very incompetent and don't have the expertise to address the issue.
 
I believe I would contact Sea Star and vent politely but strongly my dissatisfaction. Give as much detail as you can also letting them know you are notifying Bennington of you dissatisfaction with their product.
 
I did on Tuesday. I could only turn right, I felt like a dyslexic Nascar driver, then nothing . The dealer met me out on the lake, they added fluid enough to get me back to the dock then bled the system. There was a ton of air in the line. It worked great after that. I noticed as the day went on it started fighting a little I'm going to have to watch it, I checked to see if there were any leaks but found nothing. Dealer had me watch gave me all the parts and a quart of fluid just in case it happened again out on the lake. I'm not happy that it happened but happy with the response I got.
 
You may still have some air trapped in the hoses. What I've found to work best when bleeding from the helm is to have the bow of the boat raised so that the air bubbles can travel toward the helm much easier. I've done it this way on each install and never had any issues.
 
When you say it "locked up", do you mean the steering wheel wouldn't turn? Or do you mean the wheel turned, but the motor wouldn't move?

Thanks for the tip B&S, I am likely to install this over the winter, and that's good to know.
 
Kaydano,

I bleed the system per instructions, but I always finish by raising the bow and bleeding any remaining trapped air from the helm. You may or may not have any air left in the system, but typically yes. I hear many folks in the high perf. market complain that their steering isn't tight and that there is still some play at the motor after they installed the SeaStar hydraulic unit. That's because they still have a bit of air that needs to be bleed from the helm.. When done correctly, the motor will not have any play from side to side. If you find that after driving your boat for awhile that the engine develops a bit of side play and the wheel has some freeplay, just loosen the fill plug and bleed off the trapped air. Don't top off the fluid until you have bled the helm, you'll have a quick mess. Add fluid up to the bottom of the threads once you have finished bleeding the helm, leaving just a bit of head space. Hope this helps and I hope you add the power assist at the same time.
 
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I have the dealer bleed mine with the power purge and there's no air left in the system and it's quick. Also. with the power assist there's a compensation line from the helm to the pump. When I installed the pump I bought (2) 3ft aftermarket hoses to go from the pump to the helm to save $20. I could never get them to stop leaking so this year I replaced them with Teleflex hoses and problem solved. Don't cheap out on the hoses.
 
Thanks Carl. Another "good to know".
 
I have this problem with my Yamaha 200hp and SeaStar steering. Marc, at SeaStar sent me a flow chart, and told me to have the dealer check the spool valve. I tried to load it here, but it wouldn't attach... see my link on Sea Star steering problem. I was able to upload it to that one.
 
I just purchased a Bennington 24 SSRX and I am experiencing the same issues as described by others.  It was fine at first, then I noticed that it just stopped turing left.  I could turn the wheel several times to the left and the engine does not move, but it would turn right.  

Where would I notice a leak?  Is this something that I should look to replace.  I just took delivery on this boat in April 2014.

Here is a link to a video of the wheel turning with no response.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4L3L7CXJEitb1B3TjJKQ0pwRUU/edit?usp=sharing

At slow speeds, it had some response, but very little.  I would have to coax it into the dock.
 
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You don't even need the serial number to check . If the caps are not as shown then check the numbers .
 
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