Seastar steering helm pump rebuild/with pics

My Seastar steering helm pump went haywire so I spent some time checking
into what to do about it. This started out very depressing for me. From
what I could find on Classic Parker and The Hull Truth it seemed like
something you have to send in to get rebuilt. The unit was not working
and I did not like the time frame to get it rebuilt. Just like most
things, I didn’t think it could be that hard and as it turned out it
wasn’t. I did have other issues but the rebuild was fairly simple.
Started off with a THT post that got a response from a guy (Mark) at
Seastar. I shot an email to Mark and asked for his help. In a couple of
posts that I had seen Mark respond to there was some disappointment from
the help that he actually gave. I don’t know what actually happened in
those instances, but I can tell you that he helped me get started, sort
of. He helped me get the right rebuild kits and check valve was very concerned to
the condition of my system. The problems I had with him were that I
didn’t want to spend the entire winter working on this and I could not
get him to respond to my emails in less than 3 days. Except for the
first email I sent him that he somehow got back to me the next morning
on that one! Now in fairness to him, he may be very busy, and I could
not get a good picture of my cylinder shaft to send him. He really
seemed to want to make sure I did not have a problem with the shaft that
would just ruin the seals again as soon as I finished the job. Anyway
after that I never heard from him again.

From the originalcheckValve
.