Hi, been lurking here for a while and am amazed at the collective knowledge. Hoping somebody can provide some guidance!<br /><br />I have a 1985 Century 5000CC. Its 23' and is powered with a Merc 260hp (5.7l). I have a pre-Alpha drive.<br /><br />The problem: My power steering pump has a bunch of water in it. I have a setup where my rack-pinion helm uses a cable to control a valve block behind the motor. An oil line comes from the pulley driven power steering pump on the motor to supply power to the valve block/steering cylinder. I my case though, water has been introduced somewhere so my boat has "water-power steering". I believe that the water introduced is raw water and not picked up from the closed circuit cooling system.
<br /><br />Here are my questions: <br />1. Where should I look first in diagnosing the water entry point? Is there a common entry point? A breather of some sort that has failed?? I didn't get a good look since it was evening and I store the boat at my parent's house during the week.<br />2. How do I most effectively drain/flush this thing? That crud has to come out, obviously and I didn't see a drain on the bottom of the PS pump.<br />3. I'm a new *power* boater but I'm handy with a wrench. (Farm boy!) Is this something I can tackle with only a good set of hand tools?<br /><br />Apologies if you've already covered this. I searched using a variety of terms without any luck first.