Anyone Know What This Is? Large gray cylinder on my steering arm...

[DBG8492]

Like the title says, there's a large gray cylinder on my steering arm. I'd say it's about a foot long and maybe five or six inches thick.

It has an electrical cord coming out of it, but the cord is wrapped up and zip-tied to the cylinder. You can see that the connector is just hanging there.

I don't see any cables in the aft steering compartment that look like they were disconnected, so I can't reconnect it to see what breaks.

 

[O C Diver]

Is there another steer cylinder?

Ted

 

[kchace]

My guess would be an old style electrical autopilot actuator.

 

[DBG8492]

Is there another steer cylinder?

Ted

Yeah this is separate from the hydraulic cylinder that moves the rudder - I should have specified that.

 

[DBG8492]

My guess would be an old style electrical autopilot actuator.

I'm betting you're right. There are two old Raytheon 650 head units aboard and I haven't tested them. They power on and I use them for rudder angle because the old analog ones are dicey and slow to respond.

However, I've searched the web for that system and found a lot of pics of it, but none of them include that cylinder. And without any wiring back there, it would never have worked.

Plus, I would have figured the drive for those head units to be fluid-based.

 

[DBG8492]

Found this, so I'm guessing that the big gray thing is unnecessary to the function of the Raypilot and was probably just left in place when it was installed:

 

[Greg QS]

old defunct auto piolet. You should remove. More resistance on you system.

 

[old-School]

Like the title says, there's a large gray cylinder on my steering arm. I'd say it's about a foot long and maybe five or six inches thick.

It has an electrical cord coming out of it, but the cord is wrapped up and zip-tied to the cylinder. You can see that the connector is just hanging there.

I don't see any cables in the aft steering compartment that look like they were disconnected, so I can't reconnect it to see what breaks.

View attachment 155275

old style electrical autopilot actuator.