Shortened my rudder arm

[92skier]

Well, I finally got to it and took the rudder arm off and cut it down a half inch on the skier. The arm and the steering cable was rubbing up against my exhaust tubes and was making it hard to steer, not to mention it would eventually wear a hole in the exhaust tube and that wouldn't be good. Got it fixed Friday and I thought I was driving a new boat. That baby turns like a dream now and just in time too, we are leaving Friday headed to Smith lake in Alabama for 8 days. I can't wait.

[Ndawg12]

I assume your talking about your tiller arm...? How do you think a condition like that was created, what moved/expanded/etc? Certainly it wasn't manufactured that way...?

[Ronnie]

My '04 23WSLSV rubbed like that too. Did it quicken the steering any that you could tell?

[92skier]

Yes, it did quicken the response just a little bit. As far as ho it got like that, the boat has been hard to turn since I have had it while under a load, it was easy to turn while sitting still, but you could still feal the resistance when it would hit the exhaust. I have heard of several of the old skiers like this having to have some type of modification to keep them from rubbing. I guess it was just a bad design, unless the exhaust tubes have been replace with bigger tubes somewhere down the line??? I have had the boat for 3 years now and have just been dealing with it. Shame on me I guess.