2 questions

1. How often are you guys changine brake pads on the trailer?

2. How can I find out if my tracking fins are still hanging perfectly straight down from the boat?

I am an expert on neither. I would imagine when the pads are worn. I think as long as your boat is tracking straight your fins should be fine.

Discs or drums? The best way on discs is to take the wheel off & check them out visually. Not rally sure about drums, but I would think they would do the squeeking bit like cars do.

As far as the tracking fins, try using a carpentry square to make sure it is square to the boat.

Are you asking if the fins are hanging straight down, or perfectly aligned with the direction of the boat?

Drums are sealed. You can't take them apart. haha yea. I had to laugh last year when I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to take them off only to realize they are sealed so that when they get wet they still work. Maybe not all trailers are like this but I assume most would be.

Also, wondering why you would think your tracking fins are out of line/plumb?

Craig....stright down..............Alex...plumb. Having a bit of difficulty turning to the left. boat will turn fine, but when we turn the wheel back to center, the boat lurches to the right. Not steers to the right, it lurches to a lean. More than what the prop torque causes. In order to keep the boat steering straight, we must turn the wheel 180 degrees to the left. when coming off plane, if we keep the wheel at 180 degrees left, then the boat will go hard left. Only need to turn the wheel that far is during the holeshot and cruising. when idling through no wake zone, wheel can stay straight. Not sure if it is the fins, or the rudder or the steering cable. Hopefully gonna have a guy look at it tomorrow.

Alex: You say you have sealed brake drums? I have never heard of such a thing. Are you sure? I am just having a hard time imagining the seal required to seal the brake drum and how it works when the brakes get smoking hot.....

I generally ignore my trailer until I am getting ready for a long road trip. So far I haven't owned a boat trailer that had brakes long enough to wear through a set of pads, mostly because I kept the trailer 100 yards from the launch ramp most of the time.

As for the fins: I had a ski boat some years back where the fins were obviously bent. They stiff faced foward, so to speak, but they sort of curled to the side. Didn't seem to hurt anything so I never bothered to change them.

By chance do you have "slop" in the steering? That is, if you turn the wheel a tiny amount, does the boat react a tiny amount? Or do you have to turn the wheel a 1/4 turn before it reacts?

If there is something loose in the system, such as the pitman arm to the rudder shaft, or a failed heim joint, or worn gears on the rack & pinion or even a bad cable then the slop can cause all sorts of problems.

Rod, there is more slop than when it was in its first season. I am not worried so much about the slop, but how far to the left I need to turn the wheel in order to keep the boat straight when we are getting up to speed. Then need to quickly yank wheel to the right as we are coming off plane in order keep it straight again. Your last paragraph kinda gives me some things to look at. The dealer had a recall on the steering but my year was not included. I inquired about it, but they said that if the defective part broke, we would have total catastrophic steering loss. Thanks for the info.

I would not mess around get it into the dealer
sounds dangerous. I agree with rod not the fins.
Can you turn the steering wheel by pushing the rudder in both directions?

YES.

Get it to the dealer

I had alot of slop in steering and found the clamp at the rear of the boat (where the cable is anchored to the floor before attaching to the rudder) was very loose - dealer mechanic forgot to tighten after replacing the cable.