External vs internal bravo tie bars
 

I recently went to an external tie bar on my twin bravo 2s. I was told this would reduce sway and opposition when the boat was in heavy seas. As told by the guy I bought the external bar from, I removed the steering tie bar inside the boat. As a result, the steering lever/shaft on the "driving" side has worn out quickly. After some thought, it seems that steering two drives off of a bravo steering lever obviously wouldn't work for very long. Am I missing something here? Any ideas?

I would have left the internal one on in addition to the external tie bar. The external tie bar definitely will help stiffen up the tails of the drives however a complete external steering system would be even better for speeds in excess of 70 mph or rough seas in your case. Just my 2cts.

This is not a fast boat, at least by the standards of this forum. 30 knots top cruise. I wanted to leave the internal bar, but was told that the bars would oppose each other and cause stress and wear. I can't see how it could cause more wear than what's going on now. The bravo steering arm/shaft, imo, isn't that great anyway. I can't see it lasting with the extra torque.

your correct you should have left the inside bar and added the outside bar it will not cause more stress it takes the stress away by dividing it between the two assy.

I'm wondering if keeping both tie bars is a such good thing? The inner tie bar will always have the same C/L distance, regardless of drive trim positions.
If 1 drive is trimmed higher than the other, the distance would get longer where the ext tie bar is mounted if no bar is installed. But by having an ext tie bar, that bar is now trying to pull the drives together, but would be fighting the inner tie bar which is trying to keep them parrallel. Seems like the pivot pin and the hole in the gimble ring will see a lot of stress, possibly premature wear, =steering slop.

I rarely adjust trim on this boat. If I leave both bars, I was thinking about installing stops on the trim rams. When I trim down, the drives will be in the correct position and will stay there. I'm leaning towards getting rid of my shiny new expensive external bar...

You can't install both in and out bars.There is different travel lengths.It just doesn't work.I know i tried.Really to be using an external bar you need external steering.The cost to you is probably not worth it.If you want to stiffen improve your steering there was a company that sold external add on rams,sort of like shockies.I think they were called sidewinders.

Not true, my setup came has both from the factory. Yes the ideal way would be external steering.

I think it would be interesting for someone who has both to remove 1 end of the ext. bar, trim 1 drive up and see if the bar can be reintstalled. If you do, then I expect your steering pin and/or gimble ring to have been worn out from this. Those are the weakest link.

You can not have 2 solid bars working on changing lengths that are not consistant with each other. It's all geometry...plain and simple. Something has to give.

My 35 Cigarette with SSM III's had both when I got it. I could tell that it was binding up pretty good if I trimmed one drive up more than the other at all. I thought it best to remove it, and I asked a friend of mine who is very knowledgable, and he said without a doubt, get rid of it. I went to an extension box setup, which requires that you cut off the tillers anyway.

That pretty much says it all to me, if the highest performance rigs have no internal tie bar, you shouldn't have one either...

If you think about it, you take tons of stress off the gimbals by having an external tie bar versus an internal one. The external bar has probably three times the lever arm over the internal one anyway, so the internal one is useless except for causing binding.

My $0.02.