Sea Star Hydraulic Fluid Replacement

[South FLA]

This beats the regular way and you don't need a helper! Tried it and it works!

 

[Way2slow]

To each his own, but to my notion, that was some clown that just thought he needed to re-invent the wheel and made it square.

If you turn the motor all the way to the stops,and secure it with a strong bungee, rope or something so it can't move back, like the factory says, but still use the bottle and hoses on the bleeders, it's a hellava lot less work bleeding than in that video.

When both bleeders are open and the motor is centered, air stays trapped up inside the cylinder. Because the fluid hose comes in right there at the bleeder and exits out the bleeder, doing nothing for that section of cylinder between hose/bleeder and the piston inside. Other than possibly pushing more air into that area. When the motor is fully turned to the stop, the internal piston is against that end of the cylinder and leaving no room for traped air, so as air is being pushed through the lines from the helm, it goes out the bleeder. A couple of times in each direction with plenty of fluid pumped through the helm and I'm done. No going back, or wearing my arms out, and I have a nice firm feeling steering.

Oh, and I've never needed a helper either.

[South FLA]

To each his own, but to my notion, that was some clown that just thought he needed to re-invent the wheel and made it square.

If you turn the motor all the way to the stops,and secure it with a strong bungee, rope or something so it can't move back, like the factory says, but still use the bottle and hoses on the bleeders, it's a hellava lot less work bleeding than in that video.

When both bleeders are open and the motor is centered, air stays trapped up inside the cylinder. Because the fluid hose comes in right there at the bleeder and exits out the bleeder, doing nothing for that section of cylinder between hose/bleeder and the piston inside. Other than possibly pushing more air into that area. When the motor is fully turned to the stop, the internal piston is against that end of the cylinder and leaving no room for traped air, so as air is being pushed through the lines from the helm, it goes out the bleeder. A couple of times in each direction with plenty of fluid pumped through the helm and I'm done. No going back, or wearing my arms out, and I have a nice firm feeling steering.

Oh, and I've never needed a helper either.

So you recommend this way, the way I use to do it (see link below)?  What you say makes sense about the piston part you talked about and not moving air trapped in piston if it stays in one position.  Another issue maybe not detecting possible leaks.

 

[Way2slow]

I didn't see anything about bleeding in that video.

As for leaks, they normally will not show during bleeding because there is no pressure on the system. The piston is nothing but a short piece of steel with a seal in the center, mounted in the center of the rod going through the cylinder.

Teleflex has their published bleeding procedure, and it works very good when you add the step for putting the hoses on the bleeders and into something to catch the fluid and I have to defend them on leaving that part out, even though I use it. There is no way on gods green earth they are going to tell you to catch possibly contaminated fluid or fluid that may have gotten debris in it while exposed at the back of the boat and turn around and dump that fluid back in their system. Emagine the law suit that would follow the first time they had a failure that killed or injured someone.

[South FLA]

I didn't see anything about bleeding in that video.

As for leaks, they normally will not show during bleeding because there is no pressure on the system. The piston is nothing but a short piece of steel with a seal in the center, mounted in the center of the rod going through the cylinder.

Teleflex has their published bleeding procedure, and it works very good when you add the step for putting the hoses on the bleeders and into something to catch the fluid and I have to defend them on leaving that part out, even though I use it. There is no way on gods green earth they are going to tell you to catch possibly contaminated fluid or fluid that may have gotten debris in it while exposed at the back of the boat and turn around and dump that fluid back in their system. Emagine the law suit that would follow the first time they had a failure that killed or injured someone.

I meant detecting leaks once the bleeder valves are tightened, by turning lock to lock and  checking everything.    I cover the end of the hoses bleeding back into container with a cheese cloth to strain out any particulate impurities if any.  If fluid is compromised due to water intrusion or mixing of oils from a previous tech work than cheese cloth does you no good. I've done both and the will most likely go back to the original method as mentioned next time, since as you stated if piston stays in the middle position instead of end position the air doesn't come out.  Nevertheless, I used the method on the first post this last time and was successfull, most likely since I had no to very little air in system and was just topping off the helm station to correct level.

 

Thanks!