Rudder travel e29

simdim

Member II
Folks,
I am replacing my crooked and waterlogged rudder on e29 77 and wondering what should be the correct rudder travel (in degrees). Also what is the correct procedure for stuffing box repacking ( assume there is one on e29 right under quadrant)?

Cheers,

Simon
e29 '77
 

EGregerson

Member III
rudder block

Hi; i attached a pic of my steering radius; it shows the post covered by a section of orange hose; the wood block it hits defines the stops; i don't know the angle but it appears to be appx. 90* or a little less. I also attached a drawing of the E29 steering from the manual in Documentation on this site; it looks like it might also be defined as 90* or so. Wish i could be more help; but I'm sure more E29 owners will log in with good advice after the holiday weekend.
 

Attachments

  • E29 steering quadrant.jpg
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  • Edson steering radius disk.jpg
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simdim

Member II
Not there yet ...

Well that was one frustrating weekend - to see people around sail and me looking at my new shiny rudder... It turned out that OD shaft of my new rudder is .5mm bigger then ID of the barring. I had started the sanding effort but can not imagine that is the right solution for it ....
 

simdim

Member II
I need a new method ...

Folks,
I need to figure out different method of reducing the shaft or increasing the sleeve. My pipe sander method does not work ... what would yard do in the situation like that? Summer is ticking away and I am still on the cradle ...

Cheers,
 

simdim

Member II
Got an answer from Foss (they made the new rudder) that I need to reduce the sleeve with the drum sander. Had anyone removed the sleeve from e27-e29 before?
This is from Foss:

"The rudder shaft that is in the rudder that you received is 2 “ schedule 40 Stainless Steel pipe. The nominal outside dimension for this pipe is 2.375 inches. This is the same material that all the Ericson 29 rudders (vintage 1979) had as shafts. We made the rudders and have the specifications. The permissible tolerance for this material is plus or minus .031 inches. This works out to a maximum diameter of 2.406” and a minimum diameter of 2.344”. 60.8 mm is 2.391”. This dimension is very close to the nominal for the material.

Since your new shaft is .031” (.8mm) larger than the measurement of the shaft in the boat, and it will not fit, I would suggest that the bearing or fiberglass tube that is in the boat has been modified to eliminate wear that has gone on thru the years. A 2” drum sander should be able to open the tube or bearing in short order.
If you have a bearing that is removable, I would remove it to do the work. The 2” drum sander that we have, fits a drill chuck. I think you will find that only the bearing will need to be enlarged, the fiberglass tube will be larger than the bearing. Check the rest of the hardware, I am sure that it is going to fit because many boats used this pipe size and everything was made to fit to it."

The moral of this story for the next people who will redo the rudder - strip foam and fiberglass from the old shaft and send it to Foss to put a new blade on.

Cheers,
 

EGregerson

Member III
rudder

sounds like u have a solution in sight; but I wonder if the old rudder log has been lined with some material; as if it was worn, and they ground the shaft to clean it up, and relined the log to the modified shaft dimension. good luck.
 

newpbs

Member III
Really

The nominal outside dimension for this pipe is 2.375 inches. This is the same material that all the Ericson 29 rudders (vintage 1979) had as shafts. We made the rudders and have the specifications. The permissible tolerance for this material is plus or minus .031 inches.

Wow. I have no experience working on rudder shafts, but I do have some experience with fits and clearances as a machinist. I never would have guessed that the acceptable clearance was plus or minus 1/32 inch. How do you remove that much material and keep the shaft true?

Good luck. Please keep us posted on you success.
 

simdim

Member II
The good the bad and the ugly

Folks,
I have to report that after using a drum sander attached to a drill for a 4hr we had a success of inserting the shaft into the sleeve (the good part). By the way the sleeve is not solid - first 3" it is brass insert than pvc pipe. New shaft did not fit in the upper fitting, it will have to be sanded further (that is the bad part). And no to the ugly...
As the rudder spacer had hit the hull and i had tried to turn it to the mid-ship my jaw dropped and I had to introduce my 13 year old to some choice words (well he knew them all :)) Looks like the good people at foss had put a wrong angle on the shaft - rudder does not fit unless it is dropped way down creating huge gap - see attached pictures. Do you think it is ok? or should I grind the back top of the rudder and reglass?
2011-06-19_18-10-17_251.jpg2011-06-19_18-10-06_124.jpg
Cheers,
 

simdim

Member II
The Rudder Report

Folks,
First of all - thank you all who contributed to my previous cry for help about excessive lee helm and strange boat sailing behavior... After almost 2 month of fighting with rudder from Foss that refused to go in I got myself a new boat. Well technically she is the same boat - but she SAILS now:egrin:.
We went out on Saturday with very light winds 5-10 and on Sunday with 15-20 and it was a blast. Boat points stays on course and very controllable.
So for the people who are planning to use Foss services for ruder replacement:
1. No matter what they say - strip your old rudder and send them your old shaft if it is not bent or damaged.
2. Measure your bottom bushing with +/- .5mm and insist that new shaft would be machined to this size.
3. Measure your ruder shaft angle within +/- 1 degree and communicate it to the company.
4. New rudder goes farther aft - make sure you measure and communicate the slope contour.

If Foss would have produced this simple questioner as part of the ordering process - we would have a wonderful experience and not weeks upon weeks of frustration.

However the result is well worth the fight :)

Cheers,
 

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
Fwiw, Foss screwed up the angle on the rudder rebuild for me E38 as well. At least mine was in the other direction, 1/2" clearance at the rudder stock and 1+" at the trailing edge. I sent them the old rudder stock which they reused and somehow the hole in the stock where the quadrant bolts on was no longer square to the rudder. So now I have 5+degrees more rudder deflection in one direction than the other. I wasn't happy either but at least the rudder works. Next time I will do my own. RT
 
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