I am not a boat mechanic or a mechanic of any other sort, so read on at your own risk.
Before I went to Powell last week, I noted some trouble steering my baby. It did fine when I was up and moving, but if the rudder was turned at all when I started with any degree of power, the rudder would stick and I could barely turn the wheel. Scared the crap out of my wife once when she was pulling me up and the boat just wanted to turn in a circle and run me over. (I dunno why she was scared, the life insurance would have set her for life, and of course she could have tried to sue Toyota for gazillions of dollars like other civilization ruining people would do). Anyway, I read through threads and this sounded like chine lock that I have read about. Now I was scared. I called the guys at Marine Products and said I would bring her in to have her checked out. They told me service was a week out and I'd have to leave her there. Couldn't do that since Lake Powell and Festivus were waiting. I told the Marine Products guys the situation and they said, "grease the steering system and it will be fine." I did and it was.
To grease, I tried to follow the instructions in my Epic manual. No way. I couln't follow them. I called the MP guys again and they told me what to do. I climbed into the trunk, removed the easily pulled up center floorboard where it sits above the rudder. There was a swivel arm that obviously attached to the rudder and had a grease fitting on it. I greased it up. There was also a metal rod that moved back and forth to move the swivel arm. It went in and out of another rod that was stationary when the steering wheel was turned. There was a rubber boot dealio where the two met. The moving rod had clearly had grease on it at one point but no more. I greased that up while my kid moved the steering wheel back and forth. Voila! problem fixed in fifteen minutes. I wonder if any of the "chine lock" problems people have had are the same rudder greasing problem I had. An easy fix and one that may save someone from getting run over or a boat from steering itself on to the rocks. Maybe I really am a mechanic and should change professions.
