Friday, July 13, 2012

Left is right and right is left

<chuckle>

Well, tonight was interesting. My friend Kim came over to help me hook up the hydraulic steering. The instructions were less than clear, but we finally managed to figure things out and get everything hooked up. With all things hydraulic, one has to add fluid and bleed the air bubbles out.

On this system that means adding fluid at the helm and bleeding the air from the bleed fittings at the stern, port and starboard. So after a couple of attempts Kim and I finally got to where we were doing swell. She'd open the bleed fitting and mange the oil at the back, while I turned the steering wheel and added fluid at the front. We went back a forth a couple times and figured we'd gotten it all taken care of.

Then I turned around to watch the motor as I turned the steering wheel.

And guess what?

I hooked up the lines backwards.

All together now...

Ding, Dang, Durn It!!!

All we could do was laugh about it. Oh well, I'll swap the lines tomorrow and we'll do it again.

At least we know what we're doing this time. :-)

3 Hours