Difficult Steering. 94 Nautique Excel

[Batcat12]

Hello all. I have a 94 Nautique Excel OB that is hard to turn right when the boat is at speed. The wheel turns freely in nuetral. Is there anything I can do the rudder to eliminate this. Thanks in advance.

[jbach]

Change the steering cable.

[kileyb]

Grease the rudder. Same problem. I ended up stripping out the gears on the steering and replacing the steering cable before I realized the rudder needed grease. Do it once per year.

[jhersey29]

Do both. Light grease on rudder shaft and new cable. Turning hard right is a sign the cable is near end of life. Rust in housing, expansion of cable in housing, etc.
Sent from my RM-877_nam_att_205 using Tapatalk

[charlesml3]

So you're getting a lot of partial answers here that are all correct, but none of them are really bringing the whole story together. Your steering is stiff and you need to isolate which part is causing the problem. Here's what you need to do:

- Pull the rudder. This is pretty simple. Cut the safety wire and take the top bolt out. Loosen the bold on the tiller-arm clamp and most likely the rudder will just fall out. If not, pull it from the bottom of the boat.

- With the tiller arm disconnected, test the steering again. If it's still stiff, the problem is the cable. If it's nice and free, the problem is the rudder packing.

On a 1994, it's almost for sure the cable but you really should test to make sure.

-Charles