power steering cylinder - rebuild or replace?
 

I have one of my Marine Machne powers steering cylinders that is leakinf fluid real bad at the shaft seal. Looks like exxon valdez behind my boat. I am going to pull them both off,
Should I send them back to Marine Machine for rebuilds? Replace them? What is recomended here? thanks in advance... This is what I have. Its an old pic but the MM steering is the same. Thanks.

REBUILD,,,u can do it yourself....pretty atraight forward.

9 dollars for o rings and a little time !!!!

OR sell them to me and buy new ones .LOL

Very cool.... where do you recomend I buy the parts from? Marine Machine? Will they be very forthcoming in providing the procedure? Its leaking at the seal of the cylinder, where the ram slides in and out of the cylinder.... thanks daredevil!

Any napa store shoud have the O-rings,,,,,or a Hydraulic place.

I got mine from Hydraulic shop here local,,,,,,same rams !!!

Just unscrew the endcap and take the whole piston out.

2 o rings on the end cap and 1 on the other side of the piston.
If i remember correct.

wow, that just sounds too good to be true.... I have a good friend that is a little more technical savvy than me in this dept. We will pull it off this morning and check it out. I'll let ya know what we find. Thanks for all your help!! This will be awesome if I dont have to send these out!

So, it lookslike there is a seal that the piston slides through as it is extended out and drawn in.... and thatis where the oil is coming from..... would that be o rings up on the piston inside there, or would it be that seal that you can see is bad?

If its like that ,,,,yes .. i say change the seal !!!!!!!!!!

Isn't it funny how simple these 1000 dollar rams really are ?!

I would still change the o-rings and oil everything real good befor u stick it back together.

Worse than expected!!
 

Well, after getting the cylinder off and apart, we found what caused the leak. there is some kind of deep scuff or gouge in the piston that tore up the bushing and the seal!! I dont think this can be polished out either! I dont know WHAT the hell casued this either! The only thing I can think is something had to hit it while the boat was turned hard left. That doesn't make any sense. I am trying to get the guy working on it to send me a pic that I can post. Looks like I am going to have to replace the cylinder now afterall. I wonder what these things cost? anyone ever have to replace just the cylinders? thanks. Mark

How did this end up? Did you replace?

Mine has a small scratch but looks like it will polish out. Very minor.

had to have the shaft replaced. Cost 290 bucks to have MM make me a new one. All better now.