Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Ok so, boat runs great and all except it pulls like a muther you know what to the right when u get it going. I realize these tgings have some torque steer to them but good grief this is friggin ridiculous any way you slice it . You have to literally fight it to get it turn left. You sure as hell cant go left with one hand . And yes I have trimmed it out. I didnt get an owners manual for the motor and cant find one on the internet. I assume the trim tab is adjustable on a 90 merc 2 stroke. ? I have never experienced this on any of the other runabouts I have owned so its a change for sure.
Any feedback is appreciated

Is it 'pulling' or just difficult to turn the wheel?
You can adjust some of this out with your torque tab. Point the rear of the tip further to the right until you have equal forces. This will change with RPMs so at best it is a tradeoff. Experiment a bit and set it for the speed you like to cruise. There is no 'wrong' way to set it.
With higher speeds and horsepowers, it often isn't enough. Then it is time to go to a 'zero-feedback' helm or hydraulic steering possibly with power assist. You shouldn't need that on a 90.
Zero feedback helm will only even out any pulling and not help 'hard steering'. Most likely just twisting your tab a bit will make things better.
Other possibilities are cable run issues, but not likely if it steers to the right easily.
Good luck!

Also, tilt/trim will affect steering forces. if you have power tilt/trim, try changing you trim angle while underway and note the effect.


read this... http://www.mercurymarine.com/service-an ... #TrimAngle

Tim

Thanks fellas for the feedback. New things bring new learning opportunities. The boats in the slip 40 min away so now I just need to figure out how many tools I will need to take to be able to adjust it...lol

I can't remember if it's a 1/2" or 9/16" socket and ratchet.

you may want to check the depth of your motor.i personally would not of thought that this would make a difference, but while (fine tuning) my 90 hp johnson steering was easy as deep as motor would go but as was making trial runs picking motor up for more efficiency there was a area where steering was S.O.B. when got motor up higher can steer using 2 fingers.i did not adjust trim tab as mine as hard both directions.just a thought.

We have really hard steering both directions. We considered getting hydraulic steering. A boat repair guy down here also suggested the depth of the motor might be the issue. He asked if it was difficult to steer when we put the gear in reverse. This was over the winter so we didn't test it and am now reminded of it by your post. You might try Reverse too? Hopefully it's just a depth problem.

I've got a Yamaha motor. I was thinking it used an allen wrench to loosen the bolt on the trim tab. If not, it'd take a metric socket and an extension.

If it pulls hard to the right, move the trim tab to the right slightly. Then try it out. It's all trial and error to get'em pulling the same right and left.