We just had an interesting trip across from
Bora Bora. We were headed to Beveridge Reef but the
autopilot died enroute. Took a day to troubleshoot the problem (a broken piece of plastic which joins the shaft of the
electric motor to the hydraulic pump) and then another 24 hours of waiting while the fast setting 5200 did its job. During the troubleshooting, I had to drain the hydraulic
oil twice. We had enough
oil onboard to fill it the 3rd time when the
repair was ready. But this also meant that we just drifted about without
steering for 2 days during the whole process of troubleshooting and repairing.
Anyway, the
repair only lasted 12 hours, the 5200 couldn't hold the plastic together and it broke again. Didn't want to risk draining the last of the oil again even though we could have recovered most of it, so we just hand steered for 3 days and came in through the pass to here, Aitutaki, in the
Cook Islands.
A local
wood carver has made a couple of
replacements (wooden autopilot!) and I will pick up another two in aluminium today.
Now I also need to get 4 or 5 litres of
hydraulic steering fluid for the next 800 miles until we hit civilization again. There is none on this little island. There is not even any petrol on the island until the next supply ship arrives in about 10 days.
However, I can get hold of automatic
transmission fluid.
So my big question - thanks for the patience - is it ok to use ATF instead of the correct
hydraulic steering fluid in a hydraulic
steering system?
Thanks !