Guys; I've got to think for higher HP applications Hydraulic Steering is the way to go, and I've certainly read lots of pros regarding it, but does anyone have any cons (beyond expense)? While I've never used a boat with it, the only one that comes to mind is that do you not loose some "feel" for the boat with hydraulic steering? I know in my other boat with a 200 and lots of torque steer at low trim, one of the ways I teach new drivers to get the trim right is once planed out to trim up until the torque steer starts to ease up. I'm assuming this is gone with hydraulic? Anyway, opinions appreciated as it will assist it determining my Winter shopping list for the Dyne rebuild.
I have Hydraulic steering on my 18 footer with a Mercury 250XS, and you can drive it with no noticeable steering torque. I'm sold on this and would not go back to any type of cable system. Although a little pricey it was worth it. Bob
I think it is the way to go, BUT there is a con. The safety of the boat boils down to one bolt on the tiller arm. That bolt should be checked and changed fairly often. jim
My wife loves to drive the boat now that I have installed hydraulic steering. Very good investment. It is a little pricey though. My whole steering needed to be replaced so the increase in cost was basically a wash. Chad
As far as losing feel, you can still tell that it's noticeably harder to steer if you are trimmed down too far or your trim tab is off. If you can't palm steer the wheel in both directions with hydraulic steering, you either need to trim up a bit or adjust your trim tab. I see no reason not to use hydraulic steering. And on a side note, I see absolutely no need for power assist hydraulic steering on any single motor boat. It might be nice when you get into big twins and triples when you have multiple steering cylinders though to help minimize the number of turns of the wheel from lock to lock.
Thanks for the insight, but it brings up a related question. When I repowered my other boat from Merc 150 to (newer but used) 200EFI, the 200 came with a trim tab that looked like the tab had been cut off - it is more or less a flat plug offering no trim offset. Handling wise, it's obviously 50 hp stronger, not to mention different lower unit ratio, but the torque steer is probably 3 to 5 times worse. My question is why do you think it has the shaved trim tab? My assumption was it's so much stronger the Trim tab would only off marginal help (i.e. move to hydraulic), but now I'm wondering.
Many of the newer V6s have no trim tab when hydraulic steering is used mostly due to mounting height. If the motor was previously used on a bass boat it may have been mounted high enough that the trim tab would not have made a difference. You can most likely get a trim tab to replace the blank cover that yours has. Some of the new gearcases have convex skegs on one side to help counter act torque.
