Rudder condition
- Thread starter footrope
- Start date
Teflon bearing material made from a nice-sized tube can't be machined thin enough for my bearing needs. I considered acetal/Delrin and brass. In the meantime I found some 302 stainless steel shim material that might work. I will be trying it this week.
Is there any reason NOT to use stainless for a bearing on a stainless rudder stock inside a bronze rudder tube? The shim stock is 0.015" and I will stack 3 shims on the stock, greased inside and out. That is 18 inches of shim that will end below the stuffing box.
Is there any reason NOT to use stainless for a bearing on a stainless rudder stock inside a bronze rudder tube? The shim stock is 0.015" and I will stack 3 shims on the stock, greased inside and out. That is 18 inches of shim that will end below the stuffing box.
Alan Gomes
Sustaining Partner
I shimmed my tiller-steered E26 with SS shim stock from McMaster-Carr: .015" on the bottom and .005" on the top. Only the top (where the rudder post comes into the cockpit) and the bottom (where the rudder post exits the hull) are bearing surfaces, so there is no need to shim the post its entire length. I greased it with SuperLube (a Teflon grease). This got rid of the play nicely.
My rudder tube is fiberglass, not bronze. But I'm not sure why that would make any difference, granting that your rudder post is already SS.
Alan Gomes
Sustaining Partner
Actually, I did not see a need to glue the shims. What I did was bend tabs around the perimeter of the shim. (See photo for a picture of the shims.) The bottom shim can't fall out because the top of the rudder blade would not let that happen, even if it were to slip down. Nor could it somehow work its way up the tube, as the tabs prevent that. As for the top shim, on my tiller steered E26 the rudder post comes up through a bronze bearing mounted on the cockpit sole. Here again, I bent tabs around the circumference of the shim, which sit over the top of the bearing; these keep it from slipping down the tube. The shim cannot come up because the rudder head prevents that.
When I hauled the boat several months back it did not appear that the bottom shim had slipped any. The top shim is clearly visible in the cockpit, so I already knew that that one didn't (and couldn't) go anywhere. We dropped the rudder because we were doing some fiberglass work on the skeg, and when my friend reinserted the bottom shim he did put some silicone around it when he stuck it back up in the tube, which kept it in place for when we lifted the rudder back into position. So I suppose the bottom shim is now somewhat "glued," though it wasn't originally.
I can say that the shims have made a nice difference in eliminating the play in the steering. One of the simpler and cheaper fixes I've done!
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I'll have to consider the tabs for the bottom shim. Looks like a good idea and that could secure the other two shims if I epoxy the bottom shim. There isn't a way to secure a shim at the top of the tube with tabs. And I don't know if there will have to be different shims at the top and bottom yet.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Greasing?
If you do not mind a question from up here in the third balcony, does this additional layer of material around the rudder shaft ever block the greasing points where the factory zerks are threaded into the tube?
Loren
If you do not mind a question from up here in the third balcony, does this additional layer of material around the rudder shaft ever block the greasing points where the factory zerks are threaded into the tube?
Loren
Alan Gomes
Sustaining Partner
Don't mind the question at all! :nerd:
On my boat there is only one zerk fitting, mounted on that bronze bearing I mentioned (i.e., the one that sits atop the cockpit sole, from which the rudder post protrudes). There is no lower zerk fitting--on my tube at any rate. I could, if I wanted to, easily remove the top shim, squirt grease in there, and then reinsert the shim. That can be done with the boat in the water. For that matter, I suppose I could bypass messing with the zerk altogether and just remove the shim, put a thin layer of grease it, and then reinsert it. As for the bottom, greasing it was not possible before with the boat in the water anyway, so there's no change there.
I should say that I don't see a need to grease it frequently anyway. I just do that as part of my normal haul out routine, since dropping the rudder on my boat is a 5 minute affair. I swab out the old and possibly caked-on grease from the rudder tube and apply new. I'm good until the next haul.
Hi Loren,
On the E38s, although I can't recall finding any zerks on my tube, any grease points on the tube itself that are below the stuffing box could be blocked by shim material. As Alan says the cockpit floor fitting or bearing can be done without using the grease fitting. That grease fitting was, and will still be, nearly inaccessible in my boat.
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Rudder
Hi Craig. Don't Know if it would work on Pilot Project, But I rember having a similar issue on my friends boat. We mixed up some graphite and epoxy, lubed the rudder shaft, and injected the graphite infused epoxy. once it set, we were able to rotate the rudder, and found it was a bit tight, so we removed it and honed out the epoxy to fit. Worked really well. Just an idea.....
Harold, and Jessie, Mischief
Maker
Hi Craig. Don't Know if it would work on Pilot Project, But I rember having a similar issue on my friends boat. We mixed up some graphite and epoxy, lubed the rudder shaft, and injected the graphite infused epoxy. once it set, we were able to rotate the rudder, and found it was a bit tight, so we removed it and honed out the epoxy to fit. Worked really well. Just an idea.....
Harold, and Jessie, Mischief
Maker
Hi Craig. Don't Know if it would work on Pilot Project, But I rember having a similar issue on my friends boat. We mixed up some graphite and epoxy, lubed the rudder shaft, and injected the graphite infused epoxy. once it set, we were able to rotate the rudder, and found it was a bit tight, so we removed it and honed out the epoxy to fit. Worked really well. Just an idea.....
Harold, and Jessie, Mischief
Hey Harold,
That is a cool idea. It would probably have worked too, but the pour would have been difficult.
Craig
Well, we lifted the boat and put the rudder back in today. And two shims are in place, one at the top and one at the bottom of the tube. No play in the shaft and it turns freely. The rudder isn't up permanently quite yet, but as soon as I tackle the flax packing on the stuffing box it will be time to put it all together and make sure the leading edge clearance with the bottom of the boat is ok.
Alan Gomes
Sustaining Partner
Did you go with stainless shims as discussed earlier? And did you mount them similar to the way I did (i.e., cutting tabs and bending them over) or are they held in place some other way?
Looking forward to the final report when it is all done.
I used two stainless steel shims dimensions 0.015" thick by 6" tall. No tabs were bent onto either shim. The shim at the top of the tube will stay in place by itself. Even if it migrates down it'll be so slow. The second shim is at the bottom of the tube and migration down is blocked by the top of the rudder blade. I can't even move the bottom shim with the rudder installed, so I'm pretty sure the top one isn't going anywhere.
The rudder tube is topped by a stuffing box. It uses three rings of 5/16" flax packing. This was all new to me. I pounded down the packing a little flatter on the advice of the yard manager and when I installed it there was no problem getting it over the stock. The stuffing box is secured by 4 bolts. Lots of green stuff came out with the old packing. Bronze!
The next piece in the stack is the quadrant. It's in, tightened, and the steering cables are adjusted. Recall the clamp had to be shaved so it would tighten around the smaller stock.
Just gotta clean the greasy fingerprints off so the paint will stick. The hull at the leading edge will have to have a few layers of paint sanded off to clear the rudder there.
The rudder tube is topped by a stuffing box. It uses three rings of 5/16" flax packing. This was all new to me. I pounded down the packing a little flatter on the advice of the yard manager and when I installed it there was no problem getting it over the stock. The stuffing box is secured by 4 bolts. Lots of green stuff came out with the old packing. Bronze!
The next piece in the stack is the quadrant. It's in, tightened, and the steering cables are adjusted. Recall the clamp had to be shaved so it would tighten around the smaller stock.
Just gotta clean the greasy fingerprints off so the paint will stick. The hull at the leading edge will have to have a few layers of paint sanded off to clear the rudder there.
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Looking back at the start of the thread I had mentioned finding water in the rudder shaft years ago. After I sucked the shaft dry I did find a reasonably good o-ring for the cover.
Based on the 'sudden' deterioration of the rudder late last year maybe the water leak started up again at some point, followed by the bottom of that shaft giving way, causing the rudder blade to start getting water inside. Anyway, after finding that the cover was leaking from the past few days of rain, despite the o-ring, I inspected the cover, o-ring and the ring in the floor. I sanded some rough spots at the top of threads in the ring. I also checked the o-ring and greased it and all the threads. This will be a regular inspection item. And I'm going to find a new o-ring.