Hydraulic steering issue - HELP!!

[chromer]

How is the fishing? Any hali?

[Adeline]

I'll say this about cable-steering...it may be slow, and it may be physical, but...uh, what was my point...OH YEAH, at least it never spit in my eye.

[rogerbum]

All,

Thanks for the replies. I talked to Teleflex today and the first question the guy asked was "Do you have a catamaran?" to which I said yes. Apparently for reasons he was not able to easily explain (e.g. "it's complicated") due to the way the cats are typically set up it's not that uncommon for an overfill combined with the situation I describe to result in blowing the fill cap. He instructed me to bleed the system, restore the level and not worry too much about it. I did that and tested it under similar conditions in open water and everything seems to be functioning now. I learned a lot in the process and if I ever bleed the system again, there's a lot of things I'd do differently (like covering everything within a few feet of the helm with plastic and an absorbent material - ask if you want the details).

I'm not 100% convinced I know what caused the problem but I would guess there was air in the system and it was underfilled. The fluid I pumped out while bleeding it was a bit darker and a little cloudy relative to new fluid. However, I have nothing to compare to as this is the first time I've ever done this and I don't know what is typical for 4 year old fluid. Once I have time, I may purge the entire system and replace it all with fresh.

As for fishing .... it was awful for the few days we've been here. Of course today people came in with fish and told me it was "off the hook" while I was trapped at the dock figuring out my steering problem and fixing it. I'll get 'em tomorrow. I did catch a decent coho and a 30lb ling yesterday but I came for chinook and in 3 days of fishing we've only touched 3 and they were all small fish.
Roger

[thataway]

From the Teleflex site:
"The SeaStar helm pump is an axial piston pump specifically designed for manual steering. It has a built-in lock valve to prevent the steering load from feeding back to the driver. The lock valve will not allow the rudder or drive unit to move until you move it with the steering wheel. The lock valve section of the helm also includes a relief valve. This relief valve provides over-pressure protection for mechanical components and hydraulic hoses and fittings."

If you exceed the pressure of the relief valve I believe this is what causes the problems. The torque of the engines (in your and my case) allow back pressure in the pump. I know that in my case the seals were blown.

The second case for me, was just going down the rough road--and it is had to see how that would overwhelm the relief valve...but it may have.

There are also commercial rated pumps--not sure how much different than the smaller and recreational pumps they are, but both series of pumps come in 3 different displacements.

Bleeding for the Tom Cat is much easier with the power bleeder!

I would wonder why the fluid was darker. Unless you are running an auto pilot, there should be no way that the fluid heats up excessively. Is there a chance that ATF or some other fluid was used, rather than the Teleflex fluid?

[journey on]

The oil that Teleflex recommends is Teleflex oil.

It is Mil-H5606C hydraulic oil which is a petroleum based hydraulic oil, now replaced in all applications by MIL-PRF-5606 which includes anti-corrosive and flame retardant chemicals (and possibly others). It's main characteristics (in addition to hydraulic oil,) are low temperature operation and anti-wear properties.

It is not automotive power steering or auto trans fluid. Don't ask me why, but now you know.

The larger C-Dories are more difficult to bleed, because the longer lines aren't perfectly flat, allowing air bubbles to hide, unless you do a power bleed, which is what I finally did on Journey On.

I'm not sure what this adds to this topic, but there you are.

Boris