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Cutlass strut corrosion

Ray Hughes

Member I
Recently had my 1971 E29 hauled for bottom paint. Cutlass bearing was worn, so decided to replace it. Removed the cutlass strut, and found that the stainless securing bolts were badly damaged by electrolysis. On removing the cutlass bearing, the bronze strut itself cracked. The yard where the work was being done (Oceanside Marine Centre) kindly gave me advise as to some work I could do myself (motor mount replacement, so the new cutlass strut could be aligned properly). They then installed the new strut and fasteners. Recommend this yard highly. The new strut is now zinced, and "Capricious" is back in the water. A word to the wise-- please be sure your bronze cutlass strut is zinced or bonded!
 

Dave Hussey

Member III
How did you or they remove the strut? Did that involve cutting into the hull glass? Where did you find a new cutlass strut? I am having my E27 removed from the water for bottom paint and cutlass inspection in a few weeks, and I suspect my cutlass bearing is worn out, but there are so many things that can go wrong with an old boat...my anxiety closet is full ! :boohoo:

Do you have any pictures you can post? Sounds like you found a good yard:)
 

tenders

Innocent Bystander
Replacing the strut bearing is a pretty unusual repair. I bet you won't have to do it. I have no idea how you'd go about realigning the one on my 32, to say nothing about finding a replacement. The mount does not seem to be adjustable, although it's way in the back of the engine and fuel tank so perhaps I'm missing something. I think it just through-bolts through the hull.

But replacing a Cutless bearing (note, from the useless factoid archive that is my brain, Cutless is a now-generic brand name for this type of bearing, technically it isn't spelled cutlass) is, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly simple repair ONCE YOU HAVE THE SHAFT OUT. Good luck with that. It can be very difficult to separate the shaft from the engine coupling, and on some boats you have to take the rudder off to get enough clearance to pull the shaft clear. (In my experience getting a coupling off the shaft with the engine installed and without ruining anything is the most difficult thing I've done on a boat--so far--but my boat has a V-drive and the shaft passes underneath the engine, so YMMV.)

Once you're deshafted you do not want to pound out the Cutless bearing. That WILL mess up the strut. You can either press out the old bearing using a really big C clamp and a series of sockets to use as spacers, or you can cut it out by taking apart a hacksaw, reassembling it with the blade passing through the old bearing, and carefully cutting through the old bearing without hitting the strut. This might take two cuts but after you've carved a slot in the bearing it won't have a chance against the C clamp press.

Once it's out, put antiseize compound on the inside of the strut and the outside of the new bearing, and press it in with the C clamp.

I don't actually think the antiseize compound will do a thing after the many years that the Cutless bearing should last but it will make you feel like you're adding value after all the effort of taking everything else apart.
 

Dave Hussey

Member III
I would gladly leave the entire job to the yard, but as it turns out, I chose a yard that has minimal service available, so I will likely have to do it myself, with no prior experience. Thank you for the description of the work involved. Sounds OK, except for removing the coupler. I wonder if,,, I could connect my AC welder leads to the coupler so 250 amps pass through the coupler, which theoreticlly could produce around 15KW of heat (,,,,actually watts, but I dont know the conversion watts to btu's) the heat would expand the coupler, which would free its grip of the shaft, and wa-la:egrin:
(wishfull thinking)
 

Ray Hughes

Member I
Cutlass strut replacement

Removing the cutlass strut from my 1971 E-29 was easy. Four 1/2" nuts held the stainless bolts that secured the strut to the hull. (located aft of the battery tray in on the E-29) Did slice a finger pretty bad from a broken trouble light bulb left there in the muck by the P.O., so be careful. Once the nuts and lock washers are removed, the strut can be gently pried from the hull, and removed from the prop shaft. In hindsight, I would remove the prop shaft first. There are a lot of other concerns regarding this project, including re-building the prop shaft log tube, replacing motor mounts, replacing the flexable packing gland hose and packing gland flax. Source of the replacement strut was Buck Algonquin, done by the boat yard. There is no OEM part available to the best of my knowledge. The yard had to align the new strut, cut and fair it into the hull, bed and paint. "Capricious" is now back in the water, ready to go. (I'll be eating macaroni and cheese for a while--)
 

Dave Hussey

Member III
Well, Blue Wing is on the hard, and sure enough, the cutless bearing was shot. Today was the "cut the cutless bearing out" day. One of the SS set screws was frozen, and there was no way to pull the shaft from the coupler as far as I could see. After removing the 4 bolts securing the coupler to the engine, i was able to move the shaft aft about an inch and was happy to see that the shaft was badly crevice corroded where it was hidden by the bearing.. I decided to cut the shaft using an abrasive cut-off blade and remove all the bad stuff. It took 10 minutes, tops. (had I found the shaft in good condition, it would have been much more time consuming to try to dissasemble the coupler from the shaft in order to remove it from the bearing...forget about pressing the bad bearing out...it required a lot of persuasion even after cutting it into two pieces!)
 
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