Hey! I recognize that helm! I was about to come and +1 Rick’s suggestion to work with him.

RickG wrote:

Got it Phillip.

JP, I did one last year for a boat that was being operated primarily in coastal waters. The owner wanted a 316 stainless shaft and Acetal bushings. Gotta love McMaster-Carr. They have everything!
 

Got it Phillip.

JP, I did one last year for a boat that was being operated primarily in coastal waters. The owner wanted a 316 stainless shaft and Acetal bushings. Gotta love McMaster-Carr. They have everything!
 

Rick,

I sent you a PM with my contact info.

Thanks,
Phillip Henderson

I’m going though a similar issue with my steering even though my shaft does not look as bad. Mine also has the pins, but in my case, the shaft is not tapered and bottom pin in the drum area allows for some play. What that play does is my steering wheel has about 1" of play before it engages the cables if I turn it the other direction. I am getting ready to make another shaft to fix that. I also have done the bushing insert on the steering column like Rick has below, but instead of brass I used PTFE which is like a teflon hard plastic. I will post pictures once I have it apart again.

All of the ones I have had apart had pins.
I have never seen one break. If I make new shafts and pins I use dowel pins.

Rick that’s really nice! Is that your work I’m guessing? It uses pins like my water pump off of drive shaft instead of woodruff key.. do they tend to break easy or fairly strong?

This is what it should look like. This was for a W/C helm similar to yours...
 
With Oilite bushings...
 

RickG knows his stuff on this point - way more than me.  That IS a rough-looking shaft.  My shaft also had rusted threads that I could not match to anything.  The new steering wheel I'd bought fit the tapered/keyed shaft just fine.  But my shaft did not include a nut to hold the steering wheel on.  In the photo below, it is obvious that I'm comparing a coarse thread to a fine thread.  I went to the local hardware store and bought a couple of similar-sized fine-threaded nuts, but nothing would fit more than 1/4 turn.  So I talked them into loaning me a die, thinking I would clean up the threads if it fit, and buy the die from them.  But I couldn't get the die started on the shaft, so I took back the die.  Eventually I gave up and drilled a new 1/4-in (or maybe 3/8?) hole down the center of the shaft and tapped it with threads.  I stacked a bunch of washers on the steering wheel and bolted it onto the shaft.  It's been working fine for 6-7 years now.  You can kind of see how it's bolted on if you zoom in on the second (middle) photo, and then I covered the wheel hub as seen in the third photo.

It looks to me as though your shaft does have a key/peg built in near the base, similar to mine.  But your shaft doesn't look very tapered to me!  (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)  And it's certainly seen better days.  IMHO you should talk to RickG about making a new shaft for you.  Or it looks like several steering/pulley rigs may be up for sale at Arrowhead this week.

 

 

 
 

Phillip 

thought I’d just share my set up.. the key way usually holds a woodruff key a moon shape piece of metal. It’s inserted prior to pressing wheel on.. then steering wheel nut pressure pushes wheel over tapered part of shaft and woodruff key.
My shaft is removable from wheel and dash piece. But is pressed into drum that holds cable at base. I looked at my shaft for removal but it wouldn’t have come out of drum without a lot of force.. that all being said it’s a different brand name which I’ve yet to know.. Rick obviously knows more but thought I’d try to explain and add a couple pictures for visual it always helps me. Oldlure just posted complete steering wheels on AH swap meet thread, maybe feathercraft train could get you one ? Also a thought if you can’t find what you need with Rick..
wish you luck stripped threads on polished/hardened steel are never any fun. Look forward to seeing outcome.
hope this helps you a bit from the rookie 
 

Hey Phillip,
From your pictures I'd recommend completely replacing that shaft. They typically don't have a key way, but rather, have pins that engage the wheel and the drum. I've made a number of these for others here over the past few years. 
Your wheel looks like a Wilcox/Crittenden, which should have a standard taper. For the smoothest operation, I usually bore and install bushings in the helm casting too. If you're interested, I can PM you my email and phone number and we can talk.