I put silicon on the inside of the through hull fitting on mine....pretty sure there was some there from the factory....(not certain though)
I just completed this yesterday. The inside of the hull on mine had a ton of silicone. On one side I spent probably an hour hacking it all out with a screwdriver (be careful, the hose clamps are super sharp, ask me how I know), but on the other side I just yanked it through after hacking a little bit off. I didn't feel comfortable without resealing it so I put a ton of silicone back after I removed the cleanout tray
again because I forgot to do it the first time.
I found this easier than the steering cable replacement I did last year because I didn't have to make any adjustments, but it still took longer than I expected. If I did it again, I think I could do it in about 1-2 hours but it probably took about 3-4 for various reasons (see below).
Some more tips:
1. Where the cable goes through the hull on the outside, there is a rubber grommet (labeled [HASH=132]#2)[/HASH] shown in the image below I stole from
@bronze_10 that goes into the through-hull fitting (labeled [HASH=131]#1)[/HASH] seals the hull a bit and keeps the cable centered. On mine those both fell out in the grass when the cables were pulled through and I did not realize it because they stayed in the through-hull fitting unlike in the image below where they were pulled out. When I went to reconnect the cables at the stern, the cable wasn't centered and it seemed there was too much space that wasn't there when I was disconnecting. Then I saw one of the grommets on the grass and realized it came out. Fortunately I found both of them in the grass and was able to put them back. Losing those probably would've resulted in some overpriced parts from Yamaha and a two week shipping delay.
2. The snap ring/retaining ring shown in this image I stole from
@cwoav8r that is taped in as an extra--I had to use it. I snapped the original back on when I was reconnecting and realized that it was bent slightly and was very loose. Only one of my throttles had this extra one taped in so I was glad to find it as I was ready to head to the hardware store, figuring they wouldn't have stainless (I was right, see #3 below).
3. I had a really hard time getting one of the retaining clips off of the end of the cable where it connects to the reverse bucket. I grabbed it with a pair of pliers and was trying to hold it while I unscrewed the locknut and wound up ripping off the retaining clip from the end, marked with an arrow on the image below I stole from
@Julian 's thread. A 7/16" retaining clip does the trick and the hardware store did not have stainless, so I bought a temporary one and ordered some stainless ones from Amazon. I'm glad I didn't have to replace this whole retaining nut because it's forty bucks from Yamaha and would have my boat down for two weeks waiting for it.
4. When I replaced my steering cables, I started using a coupler but the second one I did not because the coupler wouldn't fit the threads for some reason. For the control cables, I didn't even bother and just duct taped them together and used one zip tie. The only place they bound at all was going from the cleanout area to the engine bay because of the plastic tubing. If you pull that out ahead of time, it's easy to pull through. Even easier if you have your wife feed the cable through while you're pulling from the throttles.
5. I've seen this mentioned a couple of times but my port throttle was connected to my right starboard bucket, and starboard throttle the port reverse bucket. It worked before so I'll just chalk this one up as I don't know, I don't care, but it's odd to me.
