sly_karma
Crew Member
Transom on my Lund glass hull is weird, not enough separation between kicker and main. Has always been tricky but EZ Steer worked on the old Merc 150. Now I've switched to etec which is more bulky cowling. Moved the kicker as far to port as possible but still the cowlings touch lightly at full lock port.
I modded my main motor bracket to fit the etec leg and hooked everything up. There doesn't seem to be a way to make it work. Full extension isn't long enough now if the main is in the water and the kicker is raised and leaning to port. If kicker leans to stbd then the cowlings will clash when main turns to port. Longer EZ steer bar won't work because existing bar is too long when both motors are in the water - they won't run parallel. The only thing that would work here would be a three-piece EZ Steer bar and I don't think such a thing exists.
The existing bar could be connected once on location ready to fish and removed for the run home, but that requires raising both motors and hanging way out off the transom in whatever sea conditions are happening at the time. Not desirable. I've tinkered with tie bar connections using threaded rod but the etec housing blocks the bar's path when it goes past 50% steer to stbd.
I'm about ready to look at remote steer options. Please tell me your experiences and the pros/cons of the different systems. Consider the situation I'm working with: main and kicker crowded together with no real options to remedy this.
I modded my main motor bracket to fit the etec leg and hooked everything up. There doesn't seem to be a way to make it work. Full extension isn't long enough now if the main is in the water and the kicker is raised and leaning to port. If kicker leans to stbd then the cowlings will clash when main turns to port. Longer EZ steer bar won't work because existing bar is too long when both motors are in the water - they won't run parallel. The only thing that would work here would be a three-piece EZ Steer bar and I don't think such a thing exists.
The existing bar could be connected once on location ready to fish and removed for the run home, but that requires raising both motors and hanging way out off the transom in whatever sea conditions are happening at the time. Not desirable. I've tinkered with tie bar connections using threaded rod but the etec housing blocks the bar's path when it goes past 50% steer to stbd.
I'm about ready to look at remote steer options. Please tell me your experiences and the pros/cons of the different systems. Consider the situation I'm working with: main and kicker crowded together with no real options to remedy this.