Anyone have a good source for these? They need to be about 1.25-1.5 inches longer than a stock Bravo. We ordered some that were a little longer and used a spacer to maintain working threads... broke two studs going lock to lock. Can't remember were we ordered the studs from.

Thanks.

Bringing this back to the top.

The studs came from Hardin (for their Mayfair kit I believe).

The studs were really long and a stainless spacer was used to take up the slack. I want to say the spacers were maybe .750-1" long. Should the stud have broken going lock to lock? I'm thinking we needs studs that are an inch longer than stock Bravo. Three out of eight were snapped. Any thoughts?

when you say lock to lock do you mean that you turned it all the way one way and it broke the studs? if so there are other issues at hand and I will explain better when I know for sure what happened when the studs broke

That’s a good question. Honestly, I don’t know watt happened. I am assuming lock to lock while system was being bled. I didn’t see it happen. One of our friends found a broken stud/nut on the ground behind the boat when it was on the rack at the marina.

This is on a Cig Bullet. The steering ams are installed on the outside and in-line with the crank centerline. It’s a new install from used parts.

Open to ideas on what to look at. We’ve been putting the boat back together over the better part of five years. I was surprised to see that the studs broke. The steering on my 311 is connected to wingplates with only 5/16 studs handling the work.

people always think that you center the ram and install it with the drives straight. that is not correct. both rams need to bottom out at the exact same time, one extended the other retracted, and that point should be before the travel of the gimble runs out. if one ram can move more than the other, even 1/8" then it will while the other is stopped. that means that something has to give, usually a bolt or the gimble. when all is set they may be at the center of travel or not, what matters is when they stop at full travel. sounds like one ram is bottoming out and the other still has a little travel and the hydraulic force pushed on the wingplate and popped a stud. just a guess with out being there.

Understood.

In this install there is not a lot of anticipate turning radius… going lock to lock doesn’t move the drives like they do with the Latham setup on my Formula.. you may be onto something.

My buddy bought the whole thing used and we installed the rams at mid-travel where they landed on the transom.

Honestly, it’s need two years since installed so
my memory is foggy.

Thinking about how the system works (and quickly searching some other installation questions here on OSO), to me it seems like the rams might be too long, right?

they could be too long in which case one would bottom out before you get too much of a turn. as I said if one bottoms and the other has any ability to continue moving it will and something has to give. some times you have only so much room to mount and that can create problems. when you buy a new system they tell you where to mount so the travel works correctly so if this was all used then you would not know where it was engineered to mount. can you get a picture of the setup? I have had ones where I had to take them apart and add spacers to limit the travel to get them to work right but if too long and you cant get the retraction side to turn far enough there are limited options. one would to move them out further on the transom or change the wing plates to mount further away from the transom to correct the geometry of the arc of travel

I’ll see if I have a picture saved. If not, I’ll get one when I get out to the boat in a couple weeks.

Thanks for the direction!

Seems obvious but....did it get trimmed up and then turned and then the drives put back down? I know mine at least has to be damn near dead on center to trim it all the way up. Was very limited on installation space and although the rams probably can take the angle there is interference from other things on the transom when trimmed up all the way. Is it possible it was trimmed up, hit/broke something, then trimmed back down? Otherwise I think comp has you covered....to break the studs something is very bound up and not happy...I used stainless ARP bolts on my bravo back cap and top cap to get proper length with the added "wingplate" and drive shower before I switched to the IMCO upper and they worked great and were lower profile than a stud and nut which helped on my setup with the above mentioned interference. I would get an extra guy or two and cycle the steering slowly out of the water and see what's going on because those should NOT be breaking.