E38 with YS steering questions

Hello all,
I have an E38 with the YS steering setup. I was working on the boat today, was in under the pedestal to service the steering gear and noticed what I think is a problem.

There is no steering/limit/travel stop on the steering gear! The steering quadrant is hollow in the center. The steering turns 3.5 turns lock to lock and at the end of travel on both sides the quadrant lightly touches the inner rubber cockpit drain lines. Anyone know how many turns a YS setup should be lock to lock?

The cast metal assembly that holds/supports the pulleys and feeds the steering cables up to the pedestal is directly above the steering quadrant. There is a broken metal boss where it appears a steering stop used to be. It would have protruded down into the open hollow area on the quadrant and served as a stop as the quadrant swings side to side. I am thinking this was the stop!?

So the question is, what to do? I could fabricate another metal stop and then drill holes in the cast metal part and then bolt it on. I have some issue with doing this. I am concerned that if the steering was forced hard over again then it would likely break the new stop off as well and maybe really compromise the cast metal support, crack it, etc. I am thinking that limit straps could be made up and looped through the steering quadrant and then tied to the ends of the cast metal support. Straps made of heavy rope, nylon webbing, etc. should work just fine.

Any suggestions? Thanks, RT

Is the YS quadrant stop pictured in this thread similar to yours?
http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=3473&referrerid=28

Loren

Looks just like the pic in Footrope/Craig Davis post in that thread. The pin in the pic is broken off on mine. RT

Pin in the center is the stop

Hi Rob,

The trick will be to figure out how to replace the stop. It's actually about a 1" or 3/4" piece of medium wall tube with a pad (hose?) around it. If you can tell how the darn thing is mounted and held in there, I would appreciate it. Mine is a little loose and interferes slightly with the quadrant. I haven't solved that yet, but I've been keeping an eye on it. I hope you don't have to pull the whole assembly down to solve the problem.

I've got most of the answer to your lube question. I'll post it on that thread. Good luck.

Hello Craig,
On the backside of the cast pulley assembly there was a cast in boss that was completely cracked off, so there is no way for me to tell what what was there or what it looked like. I am guessing something like what you describe, a mount with an adjustable height/depth stop made from a pipe, piece of round stock, etc. I am going to leave it alone until I haul next season. Then the whole shebang is coming out to have a new stop machined, quadrant reinforcement for below-decks pilot, etc. I think I can live with the lack of stops for now. Looks like its been that way for a while. RT