Rudder/steering question suppose to be stiff

[joaquin12345]

Ive had my tige 2008 rz4 since september. bought from dealer with 22 hrs on it as it was a demo, then sold to his best friend now i have it. Anyways steering has always been stiff and i was so happy that i finally had a badass boat i didnt think about it and didnt know the steering was suppose to be super smooth until i drove another wakeboard boat and i could do it one handed. Anyways after reading on here about steering cables going bad pretty early i figure thats my problem. question in have is right now the boat is stored and just sitting with everything intact. When i try to move the rudder it wont budge at all. I can make it move turning the steering wheel of course but still hard. Anyways do i have to disconnect the steering cable then see if its still hard to rule out rudder box?? Or should i still be able to move it by hand even though everything is connected. I wanna say when i first bought it i could move it but not sure.

[skippabcool]

I had stiff steering on my boat. I undid the steering cable where it meets the rudder. I could barely move the rudder so I thought that was the problem. I also had tried to grease it before I undid it but that did not help. There was thread on here about the bolt on the steering wheel being bent so I also undid that and checked it but it was fine. I went ahead and replaced the steering cable and it moves very easily now. So much that I had my son hold the rudder in position, my daughter held the steering wheel in position and I connected the rack. I had my daughter test it and she said you don't have it hooked up yet. I was surprised it made that big of a difference and don't understand why on its own the rudder was stiff but with the cable it was easy to move.

My guess is that you just need to replace the steering cable

[spyderwebb]

Chances are it is the cable, seems to be the common culprit. I am surprised that you have that problem on such a new boat.

To be sure it's the cable you can disconnect the cable from the rudder (down under the engine) and see if the rudder moves easily. It also has a grease serk you can grease to help lube it.

If after it is disconnected you find the steeing wheel still feels very stiff, or the rudder moves freely, then you know it's the cable.

There are a bunch of good threads here with further instruction to replace the cable, be prepared for a bit of a job. For some it has been somewhat easy to replace, and others (like) me it was a pain to thread it through the helm area then above the gas tank.

[OldeBoy]

One thing that helped me thread the cable to the helm. (2100V) I ran a white coat hanger along the top of the gas tank until I could see the hanger through the hole near the helm. I then tied a rope to the helm end of the coat hanger and pulled the rope towards the rear of the boat. I then tied that end to the ski pylon. I then threaded the helm end of the rope through a 1 or 1.25 inch inner diamter of clear vinyl tubing(5-6ft). I then pushed the vinyl tubing through the hole in the floor at the helm and the rope guided the tubing over the gas tank. Keep 1 foot of tubing exposed on the helm end. You can then push the steering cable through the tubing toward the helm, the tubing will guide the cable over the gas tank and through the hole in the floor by the helm. This sounds complicated but it took me longer to type this than the front portion of the cable replacement.

[chadster2]

sorry man... my mistake was I left 1-2 gallons of water in it all winter.
I assumed it would drain if I put the bow up a bit.... not so... $450 later and all is well and keep it turned left when not on the lake