Mathway vs Forman steering?

[Moderator]

Two older postings suggest at least a couple Nic 38 builds had Forman steering (which Adrian described as a “cheap copy”), rather than Mathway Steering.

Ronar M – hull #106  @ronar-m

Chihili Q – hull #119  @adrian

The Nicholson 38 manual in section 3.D. Steering Gear says:

The steering gear is by Mathway Marine and is the L.S. Type

My question is – how do you know you have a Mathway steering, rather than a Forman type?

Does anyone know whether some Nic 38s were built with Forman steering, or maybe an owner replace the Mathway with a “cheap copy” when a repair was needed?

I did a variety of Internet searches for Forman steering gear and could find nothing.

Thanks – Marilyn

[Guy H]

There’s a picture of a Foreman box somewhere, the differences are quite distinctive

I will try and find the picture

[Guy H]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1531746530547778/permalink/1653526841703079/

This must be a Foreman box as the Mathway one is through-bolted to teh mounting whereas this one is just mounted using the bottom plate, round top rather than ‘curvy square’, different end stops & doesn’t have a locknut for adjusting the preload on the gears (to remove backlash)

 

[Moderator]

That’s extremely helpful Guy, thank you. Now I’m thinking ours is the Foreman type – here’s a picture of the aft gearbox still in place. Photo taken from the aft deck locker.

Anymore advice you can offer greatly appreciated, you seem to know a lot of about steering gear.

I’m reaching out to @jonathanc (Jonathan Carr), who wrote that FB posting, in hopes of learning more since he obviously had his all apart!

[Guy H]

That certainly looks the same as Jonathan and it doesn’t match the Mathway drawing.

To have the amount of backlash that you have in yours, my guess would be that a bearing might have ‘let go’ or something else has happened to move the gears apart (the only thing that causes backlash)

I don’t know anything in particular about these boxes, only that it’s very similar to the pinion & crownwheel of a differential and I have rebuilt a few of those due to years of owning various Land Rovers

[Moderator]

I updated our progress in another posting. I’ll leave this one to be the discussion of Mathway vs. Foreman steering boxes.

[Author]

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