Edson pedestal cable yoke

[John Langford]

Another day, another weird boating incident.

Leaving Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island, in the San Juan Islands, I noticed that the throttle lever moved slightly when I alternated the gear lever between neutral and forward. By the time I cleared the Harbor, I could not move either the gear or throttle control without the other lever moving around a lot. Effectively, I could not use the gear lever without firmly gripping the throttle lever and couldn't shift into neutral or reverse at all without the the throttle lever forcing up the revs. No fun at all.

Since I had always thought of the two functions as being independent, I couldn't figure out what was going on. Instead of trying to reanchor and work on the problem I left the motor ticking over in forward and sailed back to my home port, 13 miles away.  But when I approached the marina I couldn't sort out how I could get into it and down the passage to my finger and then stop the boat. In the end, I turned the motor off and on while in forward and at the end 'dead sticked' into the slip without too much fuss. Luckily the wind was light.

I took apart the binnacle and the Edson pedestal cable cover in the aft cabin but couldn't see what was going on inside the pedestal. The throttle and gear shift cables were both properly connected at the motor end. It was my neighbour who saw me staring at the problem and suggested that there was a yoke halfway up the pedestal that secured the pedestal end of BOTH cables. Thus, the unusual interaction between them. We removed the guts of the engine panel lower down the pedestal and found a nylock nut and a washer and the hole for the bolt securing the yoke to the pedestal. But no sign of the bolt. We took off the wheel. I manipulated the two cables from below until he could see the end of the bolt. Then, putting a long screwdriver down into the pedestal from above I was able to push on the loose yoke until eventually he was able to capture the bolt as it poked through the hole in the pedestal wall. This was a lengthy and frustrating experience that left me with a few choice words I would have loved to share with the Edson pedestal designers. Deployed a healthy dose of loctite, tightened down the bolt and put the whole mess back together. Status quo ante.

Further thought. If you have your engine panel apart for any reason, you might want to put a wrench on the nylock nut visible at the back of the panel.

[Jon W]

Great tip. I will take a look to see if my MK 1 has a similar set up, and make sure the bits are secure. Thanks for passing it on.