Rebuilding a Cobra Yacht Steering System—Reassembly
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- Rebuilding a Cobra Yacht Steering System—Disassembly and Inspection
- Rebuilding a Cobra Yacht Steering System—Reassembly
Great article, thank you. How much time do you estimate you put into this? I’m asking to get an understanding of what a boatyard might charge to do this vs. doing myself.
I’d guess around 3 days, condensed down from a few weeks. A lot of it will depend on what level of horror show you find on removal and disassembly. If you start getting into the realms of machine shop work, helicoils etc., you’re entering the costly zone. There’s also an element of the usual ‘running around’ such as (in this case) for the powder coating (75miles away).
As long as things are not too bad once you take it all apart it’s not a difficult process, but you may find that these days many yards simply won’t take work like this on. Repair by Replacement is the new mantra…….
I recently rebuilt my Cobra 6 system on my Outbound 44 a few months back, and overall it took me 2 months. It seems from the few reports around on blogs for these systems that getting the old bearings and quadrant off are highly variable – some things are very difficult for some but easy for others. Since I was based in Seattle (now fulltime cruising), even finding a machine shop to assist was a 3-4week wait. Outbounds have an additional extension on the underside of the deck that adds a little more complexity than this article. Namely the rudder stop piece (completely different) that attaches to the downtube extension cannot be removed without first grinding off the tiller arm. I had to also reverse engineer the rudder stop (otherwise its $1000+ 10week LT from Lewmar) as a previous owner had some sort of steering failure event (failed autopilot crossing the Pacific) that caused the rudder stop to shear off! Thank goodness for the beefy main rudder stops on the rudder post! So unless you have copious amounts of machine shop and welding tools/experience count on it taking quite some time if it’s in rough shape.
As for having a boatyard do the work – I suppose that really depends on where you’re at – in Seattle I would pretty much guarantee it would be cheaper to buy a whole new pedestal.
Hi Mark
you raise some interesting points,that are hard to disagree with. Some of which are interconnected, e.g. These are (mildly) complicated systems
that if neglected can become a real challenge to resurrect. And part of the reason they are (often) neglected is that they work fine until they don’t, due to corrosion or damage.
And it takes quite something (as your rudder stop) to damage them. They endure huge loads at times and get little or no attention -boatyards don’t like dealing with them, partly because they take capable hands to service and repair them and the bill can be substantial.
As with other mechanical items (motors, winches, windlasses etc. the secret is preventative maintenance, in the form of careful examination, internal inspection, cleaning and lubrication of all moveable parts. This should be considered mandatory annually and before every long passage – but for some reason, steering gets left alone too often and can fail.
But to return to your points, these systems can be rebuilt as per my articles, as long as you have a simple, strong set of tools and the patience. The only things I had to outsource were the powder coating and the welding (took all of five minutes). And I could have done the paint myself, if necessary.
With heat, Kroil and the required pullers, as long as the major parts aren’t too badly corroded, it’s straightforward enough. What I’d like all who read these two posts is simply this – make checking your steering a regular task, just like others (see above) – at best you’ll find something that needs attention and so save drama out on the ocean, or at worst keep it all in good repair.
Thanks for the excellent reminder.
Colin
My vessel has a 45 year old Edson chain/cable system. There are two varieties: both have aluminum pedestals and stainless bearings on the main shaft turned by the wheel. But one variety has bearings riding against the aluminum; the other has stainless inserts in the aluminum bearing races. A friend with a sister ship who circumnavigated discovered that the Monitor wind vane controls run to the wheel on just one side of the boat created enough side pressure to deform the aluminum. (Edson warns about this, and sells a upgraded pedestal with stainless, rather than aluminum races, and an additional bearing. But I was ignorant of the issue until my friend damaged his pedestal.) Once I knew of the issue, I had a local machine shop create stainless inserts to protect my aluminum pedestal and I continue to use my Monitor. Of course, my friend put more and harder miles on the system during his circumnavigation that I have, even with a 10,000 mile trip to Polynesia and back. The lesson is the same as Colin’s– don’t ignore your steering system. Monitor and maintain it.