Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

[Prophammer]

My Teleflex steering cable froze up, I had an earlier post about pulling it out to grease it.
Am I right to say I have to pull the cable out of the tube to get grease in it? I say this becuase the tube has a zerk right on top of it, which I kept greased with marine grease.
But when I finally got the cable to slide out it was dry as dirt, looked like it had never been greased since it was pre-rigged. Also I'm not sure I like the marine grease I was using, it came from a well known auto parts chain. It is a puke blue color. Can't blame anything on it but the Mercury grease seems to stick to engine parts better. Any replies will be well accepted!

 

[cam4888]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

I had my steering cable freeze up and my has the same thing but no greese was in there. I dont think it gets greased
the theory is stainless to stainless none corodable parts wont freeze up i think

 

[Prophammer]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

Well if that's it, I'll have to pull it out of the tube once or twice a year and put some grease on it. I wish I'd found out about this before it locked up!

 

[Outsider]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

The zerks on the steering tube are really for the tilt hinge. Most steering zerks are on one end or the other, usually contained in non-OEM nuts. Your motor probably tilted slick as snot, but it didn't do anything for the steering, as you know. Before going with hydraulic, I made cleaning/lubricating the tube part of off-season maintenance (much easier to accomplish before it freezes up) ... :facepalm:

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

Actually the older steering cables had zercs right near the titl tube starboard nut, where the flexible part met the rigid part of the cable. These greased the outer stainless steering rod, and part of the flexible cable. For some reason the manufacturer d/c this zerc. Merc's have a zerc in the center of the tilt tube which should grease the outside of the steering rod and titl tube joint.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

The grease zerk for the tilt tube is for the tilt tube. It does not put any grease in the steering. Actually, that's a good thing, as grease will cause a Teleflex cable to bind up.

When you install a cable, thoroughly clean the inside of the tilt tube, check and/or replace the o-ring in the far end of it. Lightly grease the steering rod with marine grease (2-4-C), and re-assemble. If you put a zerk-nut on the tube, lube it with either the special lube supplied, or 5w-30 synthetic oil, and you'll be good.

Do not rig it so you can force marine grease directly into the steering. It will fuddle up your cable.

If the cable itself is binding up, but is in otherwise good condition, you can make an adapter and force a cleaning solution (SeaFoam) through it, and then force 5W-30 synthetic oil into it.

hope it helps
John

 

[Prophammer]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

Thanks for all the replies if my parts are here I'll be working on it soon!

 

[NOTaHOMER]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

Can you explain the O-ring to me? I didn't see on when I took it out. Does it go on the end of the Teleflex tube and pushed through the tilt tube or does it go just on the end of the nut on the far side? Thanks for yor help.

 

[roscozen]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

When my cable froze up I priced a new one and that prompted me to do some research.
This worked for me and has been 3 years without a problem.
Here's the result. ( I'll skip past the learning curve )

Here's what you'll need;
1 hose clamp,
4 to 6 feet of CLEAR vinyl hose ( hardware store ),
couple yards of string or fishing line
1 qt Mobil 1 5w30

Procedure-
1. Remove cable arm from engine
2. slide hose over arm and tilt tube.
3. clamp hose onto tilt tube.
4.tie string onto free end of hose and tie to a high point ( i tied mine to a nail in garage fascia )
5. pour oil into hose till you see it's not draining into tilt tube anymore and begins to fill the hose. stop.
6.turn steering wheel back and forth repeatedly till you see no more oil in hose.
7. refill hose and repeat turning steering wheel.
8. repeat till no more oil will drain into tube.
9. reassemble.
During this process I left the hose partially full overnight several days in a row because the gravity feed into the cable is a slow process. Twice the tube was empty in the morning. This process worked great for me. Good luck.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

There's a groove inside the end of the tilt tube. There is supposed to be an o-ring in it.

The jig some of us have made forces fluid, first SeaFoam or a mix of tranny fluid and acetone through the cable with compressed air. Then it is followed up with 5w-30 synthetic oil. The cable is completely disconnect at the helm while being cleaned.

 

[tjlight]

Re: Greasing The Tilt Tube, Will grease get to the steering cable inside the tube?

There's a groove inside the end of the tilt tube. There is supposed to be an o-ring in it..

I am upgrading to a hydralic system, do i still need the o-ring? The o-ring that was in stalled is deformed and probably the cause of my steering issues. The o-ring migrated into the tilt tube and made steering extremely hard going from left to right.