Hydraulic Ruder Aligbment
Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:39 pm
How often does everyone do their hydraulic ruder alignment? It seems like we have to do ours about every 70 +/- miles, or our steering starts to get very hard to turn.
Rudder alignment frequency is a function of two things..1. How much the rams are leaking and 2. How often you turn the rudders.
As a result, no two boats are identical in their need to align the rudders and even on the same boat the frequency can vary based on sea conditions where lots of rudder action is required.
The "O" rings in the rams do wear over time and then leak more. How often you should rebuild the rams is really a function of how much the inconvenience of the centering process bothers you.
As an example, we have a 2006 boat with 2900 hrs and I recenter about every 40 hours (400 - 500 miles) and find that I am usually off about 1 inch on the wheel at that point.
It does sound like your rams might need a rebuild based on your 70 mile need.