Alright I was able to get a couple few ounces into each cable. 75 psi. I even took off the rack black box of the steering wheel. Nothing has really changed. When I turn the wheel slow you can hear a rubbing like friction and feel a slight vibration. It almost feels like it is coming from under the helm to the right where the cables loop down. I crawled back in there and everything looks ok. I am a bit despondent over it.
Here is where cables go through fuel tank area
Oh $h!t, this is jogging my memory.
I initially heard, felt, and thought the same exact thing!!!
So before I lubed the cables, I pulled the fuel-cell access hatch, cut all the zip-ties holding the steering cables in place, and "redressed" the steering cables so that they passed diagonally across the top of the fuel cell in a straighter path. This in turn gave me more slack where the cables do their upward and sideways loop under the starboard gunwale, so I was able to increase the radius of that loop. I also added a liberal amount of marine grease to the rack.
This initial strategy did reduce the amount of friction in the cable (and thus the scraping sound at the right of the helm) to enough of a degree that I was able to do a bit more boating before the next time I pulled the boat out of the water so I could lube the cables. (I keep my boat on a lift year-round.)
With that said, lubing the cables with gear oil fixed the problem entirely.
I can't say for certain if the oil made it all the way to the loop underneath the gunwale, since no oil dripped out of the rack (like it did for you), but after lubing the cables, I no longer hear or feel any scraping noise at the helm.
One other point I want to make is that modding the Cobra Jet Fins allowed me to perfectly align the steering. It's far easier to align the jets for toe/heel–in/out — depending on whether you prefer straighter tracking (heel-out) or a better wake for boarding/surfing (heel-in) — while the fins are attached and in their final position. Once you complete the mod, you can use the fins themselves to measure your target toe/heel angle (relative to the rudder) as you adjust the steering cable yokes. Moreover, adjusting the two rudder tie rods at this point is
absolutely critical, because you need to manage the slack
just right so that, between full-steering locks, there remains enough slack in the cables to prevent one cable from forcing the other cable into a binding state.
The imperfect geometry of the two rudder tie rods, coupled with three nonlinear rotation points of the jets and rudder, plus the three different points of rotation for the tie rods themselves, requires that a certain amount of slack exists in the system to prevent binding.
When you have everything aligned and you've adjusted the two tie rods for the perfect amount of cable slack, you'll be able to turn the steering wheel lock-to-lock without feeling any change in pressure... and you'll also be able to swing your rudder by hand and watch the steering wheel spin accordingly.
If anyone has access to their boat, a 2020 21', preferably an AR210, can you take some pictures of the steering cable coming from the wheel, how it goes out toward the side of the helm, the loop and it coming down going under into the floor right there? And post them? I would appreciate it.
I'll take a photo of my steering cables under the gunwale, when I'm back home from traveling.
And with all that said... I hope that in the future, Yamaha switches to a sealed hydraulic system for steering the jets. The fact that you and I (and I'm sure countless others) have experienced significant (and downright dangerous) degradation in the steering performance — less than a year after purchase — speaks to the inadequacy of the current design. In the meantime, loading up the steering cables with gear oil (and/or bees wax) should be a preventive measure that Yamaha or their dealers perform before delivery.
