Steering quadrant.....

[Ernie Reuter]

Hello all.....I hope our good friends out in Mexico faired well with Patricia....

I need help with our rudder quadrant. The bolts have now seized up on the adjustment eye bolts to the point where proper adjustment is no longer possible. Has anyone dealt with this issue? I can get a new radial from Edson which I'm happy to do since this 30 yr old unit certainly doesn't owe us anything but before I go down that path I wanted to check.

If a new radial/quadrant has been installed by anyone...id love to know make and model of the unit.

Thanks in advance

Ernie

S/V Iemanja

[Jeff and Jane Woodward]

Hi Ernie,

Perhaps our quadrant is different than yours.  But our eye bolts are not part of the quadrant itself.  They pass through a section of the quadrant that is about a quarter of an inch thick.  Tension in the steering cables is adjusted by tightening or loosening the nuts.  

If your quadrant is the same as mine it might be possible that the stainless bolt has welded itself to the quadrant due to the dissimilar metal corossion.  It might be possible to cut the eye bolt, drill it out and replace with new eyebolts.  If this is what has happened, you might consider wrapping the new eyebolt with teflon tape or similar prior to passing it through the aluminum plate.  This trick has helped me dealing with dissimilar metal corrosion.

If your quadrant is different from mine, it might be possible to modify yours to be similar to mine.  Cut off your bad eye bolt, drill a pass-through, install a new separate eye bolt.  We have a thick fender washer on the nut side of the eye bolt and we have double nuts in order to be able to lock the nuts so the unit does not self adjust.

I hope this helps.

Jeff

Adagio, P-40 #109, 1986

Portland, OR/ San Carlos, MX

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Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 11:21:34 -0400
Subject: [Passport] Steering quadrant.....
From: ern...@gmail.com
To: Passpor...@googlegroups.com

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[Bill Schmidt]

Ernie/Jeff: I suspect that all the initial quadrant setups on the Passport 40s were the same. If so, then my experience with the replacement on Wind Witch is valid and comes with an admonition/ warning of caution.
    The  bolts for the adjustment of the cables are steel (stainless?). The quadrant, itself, is aluminum. On out boat, as on Jeff's, the two metals were frozen in bliss. But the combination...also known as a battery- had caused a lot of corrosion of the quadrant itself. And it collapsed from the rim pressure of the steering cables. The whole mess wasn't helped by the fact that salt water had, over the years, dripped down from the access plate above, thereby worsening the corrosion. Those original quadrants are now some 30+ years old. I would really replace the quadrant, even if it's just precautionary. Having the quadrant collapse off shore really sucks. Trust me, I know.
Billy Manana