Lost steering on flybridge

[72hattcat]

Recently while underway, I lost steering on the flybridge but not at the lower station. Does anyone have any ideas of what might cause this??
Is there a way to bleed the air out of the system?

[Boatsb]

Is the system a hynautic?

[Timm]

Interesting that you posted this. I had the same thing happen to me on Saturday. Very strange feeling!

If you have the older Hynautic style hydraulic steering (with air pressurized reservoir) in the starboard engine room, it is probably due to low air pressure. When I checked mine it had plenty of oil but the gauge was reading about 5 lbs. Pumped it back up to 35 lbs and I had steering again.

Now I have to go find where the air leak is as I couldn't find hydraulic fluid anywhere.

Tim

[Timm]

PS to my reply. I permantely hooked up a hand pump to the air fitting to ease pressurizing the reservoir in the future. The pump is from West Marine and is sold to pump up fenders and screws directly onto the fitting.

[Pascal]

if Hynautics, you simply ran out of air pressure. just pump it back up (fitting on top of reservoir) with a bicycle hand pump to about 20 psi.

checking air pressure on Hynautics (steering or engine controls if equipped) is part of the preflight check.

once you pump it back up, turn the wheel to port until it re primes itself and locks, then back to stbd and you shoudl be fine.

could be a minor leak, just top it of once in a while, not worth hunting.

[72hattcat]

Thank you all....very helpfull - I will try
Paul

[(Nobody You Know)]

A 12V DC pump from Wal-Mart is cheaper than a hand pump. Besides, it is very hard to disconnect the hand pump from the Hynautic valve with out loosing considerable pressure. With the 12V you disconnect while the pump is still running and virtually loose no pressure. You may need however to rig a longer 12V cord or modify the cord with alligator clips to connect to your batteries.

[spartonboat1]

if Hynautics, you simply ran out of air pressure. just pump it back up (fitting on top of reservoir) with a bicycle hand pump to about 20 psi.

checking air pressure on Hynautics (steering or engine controls if equipped) is part of the preflight check.

once you pump it back up, turn the wheel to port until it re primes itself and locks, then back to stbd and you shoudl be fine.

could be a minor leak, just top it of once in a while, not worth hunting.

Per my Hynautics Manual, "...the resovoir stores approximately 2 quarts of hydraulic fluid under a pressure of 20 psi.". Purging system, "...use ATF Type "A" (its an old manual from the early 70's) or MIL SPEC MIL-0-5606 Aircraft Hydraulic Fluid...". "The resovoir is fitted with a 10 micron filter (never knew that)...". Fill to within 3" from top of the sight glass...and... pump the resovoir to 20-30psi.

I myself keep it at 30psi. It never lose pressure or fluid, since I had my flybridge unit send into Hynautic and rebuilt. Before that was leaking over the topsides.