Pedestal restoration, continued

[jen1722terry]

In keeping with Jim Walsh's excellent photos and description of his pedestal refinishing (nice looking work!) , I wanted to share something I found on another forum (Pac. Seacraft) re: maintaining the internal chain/cables of the pedestal.

I particularly like the idea of making new drive chains from stock chain, wire and nicopress fittings. I've yet to break a chain or cable, but now that I've said that, I'm certainly doomed to have a major steering failure the next time the boat is in the water.

Anyhow, pasted-in quotes below, FYI. Enjoy!

Terry

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Bob,
We too have the Merriman Yacht Specialties steering system, except on a Crealock 37. When we purchased our boat, one of the first inspections I did was pull the chain/cable assembly from the pedistal for inspection. I found that while the cable portion looked fine, the chain had numerous cracked links, some seriously. Replacement cable/chain assemblies were not available, so I made my own. The chain is standard roller chain, available from McMaster Carr. In lieu of the special swaged cable ends joining cable to chain on the original part, I used Nicopress sleeves and thimbles to join the chain to the cable. While I was at it, I made up two spare cable/chain assemblies. That was over 8 years ago, and we are still on the original "home made" replacement with no problems. This approach will require buying a Nicopress tool if you don't already have one, but they are handy for other projects too. Hope this helps,

Dave
Crealock 37 #151
"Eowyn"

Ours is 30 years old. When we refurbished the boat we sand blasted the pedestal, primed and awlgriped it. I sent the controls and the nut off for new chrome and I took all the controls apart, lubricated and put it back together. Works great and looks good as new; maybe even better. I used Silicone for bedding as silicone is not electrically conductive and I used the same SS bolts that it was put on with the first time. I added an Edson pedestal guard and had to have a welder modify it to fit. There is an outifit in Canada that has some Yachtspecialties stuff; think it's HMG.

[jen1722terry]

Hello all CDer's!

I posted about the old Merriman Yacht Specialties (MYS, or YSI) steering pedestal maintenance on 11/28/14. I'm now in the process of making a spare roller chain & cable assembly for our pedestal. We don't think this assembly is available from any source.

Our question is: does anyone know the exact link size of the roller chain? McMaster-Carr sells this roller chain in a variety of sizes. We now have the original MYS owners manual which specifies the cable diameter, but not the chain link size.

If any of you are oiling your chain this spring, we'd be most appreciative if you could reach in there and measure the dimensions of one link.

Thanks in advance, and do enjoy your spring sailing.

Jenn and Terry