All Tickie... no turnie
 

1987 CC Stinger, twin 260hp sbc omc cobra.

Second shake down for this year, first time thought I heard a knocking. Took it out again to see.

Went to back into a channel and I could not back the boat to the starboard with the starboard screw. Knock knock knock knock knock could be heard. No serious vibration, drive shifted normally. Engine runs normally.

Ran it back to my slip and before I tried to dock I tried out in the channel. No backing to the sb with the sb. So I took that one out of gear and docked it on the port. No problem turning with the port.

Thoughts? U joint? Gimbal?

I had to wait until later today or tomorrow to pull the boat from the slip.

Only symptoms are the knocking and the loss of steering on that side. No fluid loss inside or out. Knocking is not engine.

Re: All Tickie... no turnie
 

BTW... thanks in advance for input.

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loose nut behind the wheel...better? :D

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You a funny funny man Rob.

But no jokes without serious suggestions.... a man has a broke boat over here. :D

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I cant get serious, I was serious on another thread and I was told I was jealous and stupid:rolleyes:

as for your boat, generally u joints will start making noise when shifting first, it shouldnt only do it reversing, if you can grab it see if there is play side to side, being as you have screws, the angle wont change like on a trimable drive.

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Yeah... I will play with it when I get it home. Was just looking for some ideas. Wondering was driving me nuts.

Whoever called you jealous and stupid just doesn't know you very well. Don't let them bother you. We all know you aren't jealous. :D

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This is not going well. I will not play with it when I get it home. I will check it. :D

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Dam Rob,

Now nobody is making any guesses.

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My guess is that the tiller arm for the outdrive has come loose inside the boat and the outdrive has turned further than normal causing the u-joints to complain

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I didn't check that. It was getting dark.

That's a good thought.

The u joints (joint) only complained when the wheel was all the way to one side at first. Then they (it) would complain any time the wheel was not directly forward. I get the sense that the problem is SB only not port. I was able to make a normal turn in reverse in the SB direction using only the Port drive when I backed in to the slip. Going bow-in would have been too easy. :D

Thanks Mark... we shall see.

Keep em coming. :)

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Lib21... you out there?

You know cobras. Any thoughts?

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Yeah, I'm here, and I'm reading.
I just haven't come up with an opinion yet.

Paul

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Is it only making noise in reverse?

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noise is full time.

steering problem (loss of response from steering wheel input) seems to be worse in reverse.

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I don't know what omc uses for a gimbal but it sounds like it broke or fell apart part way,Smitty

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You might have puked a gimbal bearing, or a "U" joint (as has been said).
Don't drive it like that. You'll do damage to the transom assembly. Pull the drive off, and check the bearing, and joints. Also check the shaft going into the drive for play. Let us know what you find. Changing a gimbal bearing is easy (with the right tool).

Paul

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I only ran it about 20 minutes back home last night.

I kept the wheel as straight as possible. No S turns. No top speed.

There is a hoist at the end of my dock, so I will use the other side to get it to the hoist and pull the boat before I run that side.

I will pull the boat tomorrow or Friday.

I was just kind of trying to get an idea of what I might be looking at so I could noodle it around in my brain.

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Pulling it today. We shall see what it looks like.

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Well?.........

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Well????

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Pulled the boat on Friday night and took her home.

No signs of any damage on the outside. Can't duplicate the knocking noise on the hose.

Tomorrow morning I am taking it over to an OSO friend's shop so he can pull the drives and see what's going on inside.

I used to pull my own alphas but these cobras are too freaking heavy. Can't use a hoist because of the swim deck.

Re: All Tickie... no turnie
 

Odd.

U joints were a little dry but no big deal.

Everything looked fine. No obvious signs of gimbal or u joint failure.

Putting the drives back on and gonna go try to break it again. :D

Starting to wonder if the knocking/loss of reverse was the R not fully going into gear due to cable stretch. Had to adjust it a little at the end of the season last year. I was backing up at the time but there was also a wicked current... so I am wondering if the current was backing me up instead of the drive.

We shall see.

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With my single 29' and a big prop, I can forget about backing up across a current or a wind. At best it will go straight regardless of steering.

I imagine you'd get the same effect with a twin in a strong enough current.

Good luck

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Fund Razor,

You were messing around the engines when replacing the manifolds. Make sure the steering didn't work itself loose.

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I was trying to go really slow so only SB was engaged. Port was in N. It was the combination of the knocking/ticking and the loss of steering input response that got me thinking gimbal.

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Good point.

I inspected the steering pretty closely before I took the boat over to Tizbad. Looked ok. Tiller was intact and connected to the steering ram. Have full steering movement on trailer.

I will go over it again when I pick up the boat.

My plan is to stick it in the slip and take increasingly longer shake downs until I am satisfied that it's ok.

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You may want to try running the boat on the trailer and tilted to the angle it is in the water. If it was knocking all the time in the water and not on the trailer, could be something lose swinging onto a spinning driveshaft while at an angle.

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I tried that. I tried it in the water too.

Back at my dock I couldn't get it to act up again, but I don't believe in spontaneous boat healing. :D So I pulled her for a closer look.

Another friend made a good point that since the moment it happened I was focused on regaining control and not hitting a jetty in close quarters... maybe my brain wasn't in the best troubleshooting mode.

Right now I am leaning toward shift cable stretch as the cause of the noise. Especially since the drives have been pulled and all gimbals and u joints closely inpected for wear and failure and none found. The u joints did need lube.

I am gonna take another close look at the steering linkage and proceed with caution. My slip is 100 feet from a hoist down the same dock. If I have to... I could recover the boat on a hand line. So... I am gonna launch her assuming that everything still is fine on the trailer.

Thanks for the input guys, I know that I had you taking wild guesses... but curiosity was killing me until I could pull the boat and the drives.