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I had an unfortunate rudder incident last season and thought I had everything all straightened out. I’ve only used my boat twice this season and just realized that the key in the rudder shaft was busted allowing the rudder to gradually become misaligned. I’m going on vacation next weekend and am hoping to fix this right away either myself or at a marina if they can get to it right away. 1) I happened to have an extra prop shaft key which is 1/4” square, so should fit into the slot, but it is longer. Any issues with using this instead of ordering and hoping i receive an actual rudder key? There is plenty of clearance above that I don’t think it will hit anything. 2) Has anyone ever had to replace one of these? I don’t know how hard it will be to get the remnants of the old one out or how difficult it is to install the new one. I’m hoping that I just align the rudder and tiller arm, drop the key in, and tighten. 2001 Malibu Sunsetter V-drive

I have a 97 tantrum. The helm box, ( i think its called that) crumbled. Looking for replacement. Cable seems to be just fine but the gear box for helm fell apart. Looking for some guidance and a replacement part. Thank you!

I've been messing around in the garage on the boat a lot lately. I've noticed play in my steering wheel for a while now and just attributed it to a worn tiller connection since that happened on a friend's Response of similar vintage last year. I decided to tighten that up but noticed it was nice and snug. No play at all. Hmm... so where's this play coming from? Turns out, the U joints in the tilt steering assembly had developed a bunch of slop. That and the steering wheel shaft bearing had developed some play in it. So for about 150 bucks on Amazon, I ordered one of these. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001IUVYX8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 To replace, it's a pretty simple process. Remove the steering wheel by locating and removing the large nut holding the wheel on the shaft. This was the hardest part of the whole job. The wheel is pressed onto a keyed, tapered shaft. King Kong tightened mine apparently. Took some serious pulling on the wheel and smacking of the shaft with a hammer (don't worry about munging the threads, the part is trash anyways). Like with your prop removal, don't remove the nut all the way in order to prevent blasting yourself in the face with a steering wheel when it lets go. Remove the rubber boot covering the tilt mechanism. It slides right off. Remove the two screws holding the plastic collar in place that the rubber boot anchors against. It'll pull straight out, but might be slightly sticky around the bottom where the lever rubber cover sits in its channel. Just give it a pull and it'll come out. Find that dang rubber cover for the lever that will definitely fall off in step 3. Tilt the shaft all the way DOWN to give you easiest access to the two allen bolts holding the pinion shaft into the helm socket. Loosen the allen bolt closest to you and completely remove the distal bolt. Remove the two large philips head screws holding the tilt helm assembly against the mounting base. Pull everything straight towards you. Admire your technical prowess On the new assembly loosen the allen bolt closest to you Slide the new assembly into place and reverse the steps above Haven't taken it on the water yet, but I can tell already the steering is super tight. Incidentally, they changed the bearing setup in the newer units. They're no longer crappy ones held in place with a snap ring. It looks like the new ones are nice sealed press-fit units. Hopefully they also improved the U joints.

Took the boat out yesterday and noticed the play in the steering wheel from about the 11 oclock to 1 oclock positions and the steering wandering around 30mph. It seemed like i had to work to keep the boat in a straight line and over correct for each adjustment. This was with the wheel tilted all the way up. I tilted the wheel all the down and it went away, back up and the wander and play returned. The previous owner said he replaced the steering cable last season so assuming that is true, I don't think it be be a worn cable. any ideas on how the wheel tilt could be effecting the steering?