Steering Cable Lubrication Help

[sidenberg]

I have a Mercury 150 Optimax, 2000. What is the best and proper maintenance procedure to lubricate the steering cable?
What type of lubricant is best? The manual I have says to lubricate with Mercury Precision Lubricants 2-4-C or Special Lub 101 through the fitting while the cable is fully retracted. Actually my motor has no fitting? What is this stuff and will regular marine grease work as well?

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Steering Cable Lubrication Help

The only thing you can lubricate is the steering rod. Extend it fully and clean it. You may use a solvent if really dirty. Now lube it well. Special lube 101 is the best, but any marine grease works pretty good. Your motor should have a few zerc grease fittings. Hit those with a grease gun.

 

[sidenberg]

Re: Steering Cable Lubrication Help

Thanks for your reply. I have had to free a frozen cable on 2 occasions on my previous Force 125 which is not fun. However applying heat with a torch freed it up pretty quick. Do you think keeping the cable clean and lubing it up while extended regurarly will keep it working as good as using a "cable buddy" or similar?

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Steering Cable Lubrication Help

Yes, if you clean and lube it twice a year, you should not have any issues.

 

[chum1]

Re: Steering Cable Lubrication Help

The best lube for a steering cable is to bite the bullet and buy a new steering cable, heating up the cable will work until it gets cold again and then guess what.....do it all over again. as far as the grease zerc in the back on the tube i think it was put on there by cable manufactures to sell more cables, that is where the wrong grease gets pumped in and turns to glue. Almost better to bust off zerk and just lube with triflow/wd40 or just leave dry.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Steering Cable Lubrication Help

The steering cable is lubricated, supposedly for life, with a light oil. If you use too much grease on the rod, or in your case likely there's an external grease fitting on the front steering cable tube, it'll force grease into the cable and jam it up. Factory says only fix is to replace it.

Some of us have used a home made adapter, seafoam, and compressed air to clean out the cable. Then use the air to force in a light oil. I use 5w30 synthetic motor oil.

I had a new pair of Teleflex cables freeze up on me in a year because I greased them. I designed an adapter, and others have come up with other designs to fix it. That I did 3 years ago, and my steering is still fingertip free. I replaced the tube to steering rod seals (O rings usually), cleaned out the tubes, and just applied a thin wiping of 2-4-C on the rods at that time. Haven't done anything since.

Here's some info from the project.

I found that the threads on a 3/4 in flare fitting I had in the junk bin are exactly the same as the tilt tube, 7/8" NF. Then the light came on. I drilled out the bore of the fitting to 5/8 inch. Then went at the front of it with a step drill to clean up the end, and chamfer it slightly. That gave me a brass edge that seats against the cable end flange oil tight with no goo of any kind. To that flare fitting, I added a 3/4 fpt to sweat adapter, a length of 3/4 in copper tube, and a 3/4 sweat to 1/2 fpt adapter. I screwed an air zerk into a 1/2 x 1/4 in bushing.

I fit this contraption over the rod of the cable, threaded on the cable connection. Tilted it up and filled it with about 6 oz of SeaFoam, screwed in the bushing, snapped on the air hose, which was hung over the overhead rail, keeping the cable tilted upward.

I ran 3 passes of SeaFoam through each cable. One was rusty, and the other took about 1 1/2 hours for the first pass, as it was full of black goo. Oiled em up with 5W30 Wally World full synthetic, detailed the rack with a rag and greased it up with WW marine grease, assembled it, and it's like new.

 

[dave99]

Re: Steering Cable Lubrication Help

A million thanks j_martin!! I have a 1987 Evenrude 200 on a restoration project and the steering is stiff. your contraption is just the idea I am looking for to salvage my steering cables and save about $300 of this already over budget project. Within the next couple weeks I hope to give it a try