Hydraulic Steering Hose Repair

[CWilder677]

Magus has hydraulic steering which has worked fine for years. But now some of the 1/4" hoses are getting holes. I have new hose which I can cut to the right length and new inserts and acorns. But I would like to know the technique for putting the inserts and acorns on. The last time I tried I had to butcher the end of the hose to get everything to fit, and of course it leaked. I want to be able to do this at sea in case a hose bursts while out there.

[HopCar]

The trick to putting on reusable hydraulic fittings is to get a good square cut on the hose end. Her is a link to a nice photo tutorial: Re-Usable Hydraulic Hose Fitting Tutorial - TractorByNet.com

[Blue Stocking]

HopCar,
I owe you one. Went to that site out of curiosity, and found a solution to a long standing problem.

[osirissail]

Good luck with the reusable hydraulic fittings. I would suggest religiously following the guide mentioned by HopCar.
- - My boat also has hydraulic steering and I wanted to convert from copper pipe to hose so tried to do the installation of the reusable hydraulic fittings. It was a nightmare of difficulty with only one out of 6 attempts succeeding. So I went back to flexible copper tubing and flare fittings for most of the installation. The routing of soft copper tube around, over and through existing bulkheads and obstacles was a task but the flare fittings were very easy.

[motion30]

The fittings I have used required a arbor to install I was cheap but worked well , good fit every time

[Blue Stocking]

What stage of the assembly gave you the problem?

[osirissail]

In my bad experience with the reusable fittings the main problem was getting the stems to screw into the hose more than half way. The hose would start rotating after that point and the whole system failed.
- - However, after talking to the engineers at the makers of the fittings, they said - "Aren't you using the special arbor tool?" I said, "what arbor tool? Send me one." They said they can't do that, you have to make it yourself and sent me a photo. At that point I gave up and went back to soft copper tubing. But this was 10 years ago so maybe things are different now.
- - I concluded the problem was that there are variations in the thickness of the hose walls and if the hose wall was just a touch too thick the stem would not screw all the way in. The distributor of the fittings mentioned that they got a lot of returns due to the same problem and were considering stopping to sell the product.

[dohenyboy]

I don't know how large your boat is, or how much hose you are talking about.
1/4" is fine for a small boat, but in general it never hurts to go bigger. Also, I have the philosophy that if its a critical mechanical component, in which failure at the wrong time could cause serious problems, I have the best person I can do the job for me. I would have the pieces made up by a professional shop using the best materials possible.

[Cheechako]

Have you considered just measuring and having good hoses with swaged ends made?

[CWilder677]

Thanks for the ideas.

I have found out several things since my first post.

1. I can't reuse the olives (ferrules) since they have been compressed; that's why they wouldn't fit.
2. Cheap compression ferrules won't work on hydraulic steering; may be fine on pressurized water hoses.
3. My helmpump and dual non-return valve are made by Vetus and the hose and fittings are made by them and are not the same as other fittings.

So I have been working with Vetus in Maryland to get the right part-numbers and I am ordering hose and fittings from a distributor in Florida.

[Hannah on 'Rita T']

Thank you for posting the follow up. I suspect our hydraulics are the same since we have so many Vetus parts on the boat.