New hydraulic steering for560series sharkcat with motor Wells. What have you put in?

[CATchin'Em]

Hi,
my old (1979) 560 series sharkcat with motor wells hydraulic steering has been in need of renewal for last 5 years. I will need a compact bullhorn setup I would think. I currently have side mount Rams with extensions and swivel brackets that come through the well wall.
also looking at doing a cheap (simple direction) autopilot whilst I going if it can be done economically.
What has anyone got or fitted to these??

[Noelm]

When I did my cat rebuild I used the Seastar double ended ram, mounted on a home made bracket under the back seat, then just cut and re welded the standard drag links to the right length, works a treat, and no tie bars or valves to worry about, simple and easy to use.

[scottar]

I would get in contact with Graham at Hydrive Queensland and get him to send you the info as to the required space for the bullhorns so you can do a measure up if you want to go that way. As for the pilot - plenty of options. Raymarine are probably the major player in the entry level stuff. Noels suggestion is a good one. Does away with a heap connections and any issues with rams getting out of sync.

[Noelm]

Just to better explain the bracket I made, all it consisted of was a piece of Aluminium tube, just long enough to mount the ram on, I drilled 4 holes in it, used 4short stainless bolts into tha ram mounts, then another 4 bigger nuts and bolts to attach it to the rear section, just below where the tow hook thing is mounted above the duck board, I just mounted it so the ends of the rams lined up with the steering point on the motors, the tube I used was 50mm to allow the tam to be lined up, each end of the ram has a sort of "eyeball" joint to allow for independent movement of each motor, the whole job probably only took an hour or two.

[CATchin'Em]

Can you take a pic so I can see what you are talking about Noelm. Now to have a look at autopilot a bit and. Make sure I get it right.

[captain rednut]

I have just put a pair of 90HP 4/stroke suzukis on the same hull and i used the splashwell kits mounted on the side of the outboard well, with twin hydrive 210 cylinders on the end of the tubes.
Works very well.
Cheers Jim

[CATchin'Em]

HEy jim, what 210 cylinders did you use. Apparently the 210t is 200mm longer than 210tse???