JD430

Hello all, I've been trying to tighten up the steering on my checkmate 253, and have had everything from the gimble up through to the steering arm checked out by multiple people who work on boats, and that all checks out and is tight. So I decided to try from the other end and pull my helm unit and cable to replace to see if that takes up any of the slop. Noticed there was some play at cable end at the clevis, and quite a bit of free play in the wheel from point of resistance to point of resistance. The trouble is it is an old mercury "Ride Guide" rotary set up which come to find out is obsolete, and comes as one unit - the cable doesn't come out of the helm unit, it stays together. The guy at the marina showed me what the closest replacement he had looks like, and I really dont think there would be enough room for it. The 'Ride Guide' helm is very flat, and to remove it I had to unbolt the shaft that comes through to the steering wheel which reduces it to only about a 2" wide disc and slides right out. With the newer style the shaft does not just come off, and I do not think I could get the unit, with shaft, in to place. Does any one have any suggestions on what I could use? I am thinking about putting the old cable and unit back in, considering when I brought it in to see if I could buy new, the guy at the marina told me after working the cable by hand of the one I pulled out, he said that it was fine, and there would be just as much play as that in a bran new one. At the same time I dont think he really knew that this wasn't a 20 - 30 mph fishing boat either. The boat has 460 hours on it, and I imagine this could be the original cable and helm unit. Is it absolutely crucial I replace the cable and helm due to the chance of it breaking just from being so old? I don't see any broken spots or kinks anywhere in the cable, and the cable end where it connects to the clevis does not look visually oblong, still looks circular. I plan on doing some form of external hydraulic soon, although that doesn't help me for this weekend... was also wondering though, if I made the jump for full hydraulic, aren't those helm units for those setups relatively small or no?

Thanks to anyone who reads through all this, and thanks in advance to any one with any ideas for me.


JD