Leaking hydraulic steering ram for kicker

[Rain City]

Hey guys,

The system on the Commander was installed like *****. It didn't steer to Starboard at all. Just went from straight to hard to Port. I'm not sure what kind it is. The ram is installed in the middle of the kicker bracket. I ended up fabbing up a an aluminum extension dealey the mounts to the handle of the kicker which moves the mount/pivot point over. It worked great but the kicker doesn't travel as far as the ram wants to go. So long story short a buddy came on the boat and "over-steared" and caused the whole deal to kind of get all jacked up and bent the rod coming out of the ram. It's now leaking fluid. Does it all need to be replaced? Is there a seal in there? Does the rod need to perfectly straightened again? It still works fine as long as my dumb-butt friends are paying attention. Also is there a way of limiting the travel on the ram? Does it seem odd that I'd have to make a hockey stick like bracket to make the steering work?

 

[noluck]

can you post a picture of what you have back there

 

[Rain City]

can you post a picture of what you have back there

I'll take one this morning for sure.

 

[Trophy]

Raincity
Upon the installation of a powrtran sterring unit on my kicker several years ago, the instructions said to attach the powrtran arm/pivot mount to the center of the kicker bracket. After doing so and a test run I quickly found out that this is correct for a kicker mounted in the center of your transom but required tweeking off center on the kicker when the kicker is mounted to the side of the transom as most kickers are. It took several tries to find the sweet spot of the piviot kicker mount.
Hope this helps. Cant offer much with your shaft/seal problem.