Wheel steering problem

[Stooriefit]

I have a Bavaria 32 with wheel steering. This has become very stiff and instead of being smooth running it is now 'sticky'. Any suggetsions for suitable lubricants? Is there some adjustment that can be made to ease it off? The rudder has never been damaged.

Thanks

 

[discovery2]

Don't know what type of steering is on the Bav 32, but mine has hydraulic steering. If the resevoir/pump is low on oil, the wheel does not turn smoothly, but tends to have a little resistance, say every 20 degrees of rotation - rather difficult to explain! Topping up with oil cures the problem.

 

[Hoolie]

We had stiff steering on our GibSea 402 before the cables parted just before going into Portsmouth Harbour! It turned out the cable had come off an intermediate pulley between wheel and quadrant and had been jamming/destroying itself since before we owned the boat. Worth checking if yours is a cable system ... ...

 

[bigwow]

We had a similar parting of the steering cable as we rounded the perch coming into Conwy, good job we could steer with the engines or we could have collected a row of boats on their moorings as the river was really running. Suddenly discovered why the steering had been ‘notchy’ previously.

 

[Chris_Robb]

Another thing to check is the bearings. Some are made of Nylon, which can expand in the water, so making a very tight fit on the shaft. We had this on a brand new Oyster 41 where we had to have the boat lifted on its first cross channel in cherbourg - rudder dropped out - flapper wheel sander to increase the bearing clearance - rudder back in. On return Oyster fitted a proper bearings.

 

[PeterGibbs]

Adding to Chris Robb's posting ref nylon bearings: Bavaria have used (as on mine) a system of 2 nylon bushes to support the rudder stock. The lower one, immersed in seawater, can degrade, sometimes in (my experience) only a couple of seasons, effectively clamping the stock and making steering progressively more difficult. In dealing with Bavaria they have written to advise me this item is an "expendable" This is an unfortunate downside of what is otherwise a sound system.

However, removing the old bush and inserting a new (cost £50 or so) is not (as I found out) the final solution. So now I have dropped the rudder and ground out about 1mm of nylon (you will see it is ingrained with algaic growth) effectively taking it back to neat nylon. A suitable heavy duty water repellant grease applied to this bearing will aid the return of the stock, and all will be well - for a while.

In my experience the top bearing has not deteriorated, so needs no attention.

Replacing this system entirely is major engineering, because the race that contains the nylon bush is a large piece of alloy that is bedded in during hull layup! Not recommended.

The other possible reason for stiffness is progressive failure of the wire linkage to the quadrant, or some foreign material interfering with the chain linkage in the pedestal that runs over he pulley directly driven by the steering wheel - you will see clearly when opening the inspection hatch on the pedestal.

Not nice to think the steering is not 100%, so if you want more ref Bavarias on this topic, email me.

PWG

 

[Richard10002]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a Bavaria 32 with wheel steering. This has become very stiff and instead of being smooth running it is now 'sticky'. Any suggetsions for suitable lubricants? Is there some adjustment that can be made to ease it off? The rudder has never been damaged.

Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

Does the wire run through conduit, or around pulleys. If the former, I have run simple 3 in 1 oil down the conduits and this has freed things up.

Cheers

Richard

 

[BadBoy]

I have had a similar problem with my Bav 37. In my case, the steering started to stiffen after approximately 6 months. We hauled the boat out and followed Peter Gibbs' approach of grinding out the nylon bush and this initially solved the problem. However, three months on and the steering is starting to stiffen again and we are getting ready to haul the boat out again.

The Aussy dealer from whom I bought the boat has never come across this problem before (and they have sold a lot of Bavs in Australia), so I originally assumed that my problem was specific to the waters of Singapore where I am based (the sea temperature is around 33C here and there are probably different pollutants, algae, etc to other countries). It may be that this does contribute the the problem occurring more quickly. However, it looks like this problem may be more systemic, possibly related to a change in the last few years in the material that Bavaria uses for this bush.

I have asked the Aussy dealer to pursue this with Bavaria directly and would love to hear from anyone who has had a similar experience.

Cheers!

Andy

 

[rogerthebodger]

If the rudder bearings are Nylon that is a fundimental design error as it has been known for a long time that nylon swells in water

Vesconite is the only bearing material to use below the water line details here

 

[Stooriefit]

Peter,

You posted a reply to my querya while back. Where did you get the brushes from - directly from Bavaria or via Opal? Alos did you do all the work yourself and if so is it relatively straightforward?

Many thanks

Alastair