Loose fitting rudder on shoe pin

[Keith]

John thanks for the always thorough response. It is greatly appreciated. It is raining hear today so I'm just working in the basement cleaning up the shoe and pintle and as another confirmation the pintle is absolutely press fit into the shoe and shows no signs of wear. I also noticed your comment on the black rubbery stuff between the shoe and the keel, whats up with that? I wonder what CD was thinking. Anyway I was studying your picture looking up into the rudder and can clearly see the end of the SS shaft that runs down the length of the rudder but I can't see any SS sleeve on the ID of the hole which is exactly what mine looks, like just epoxy/glass. Tomorrow I'm going to do a through examination of the hole in the rudder and get the depth to the SS shaft, ID and scratch up in there to finally determine what the wall material is.

I ordered two leaded bronze bushings from McMaster both are of course for the 1" shaft but one has an OD of 1 1/8" and the other 1 1/4" and one is 3" long and the other 4". I'll see which one will work the best.

Thanks to all for the responses and I'll update with pics as the process proceeds.

Keith

PS I have had a busy winter project schedule and will post those as well. Project list; Battery compartment upgrade (which I just need to post the final pics), sea hood repair for soft spots, rudder stuffing box hose replacement, strip and barrier coating of the port side (I did the starboard last year and just run out of gas to complete the port), new sail, pedestal and wheel covers (my sewing is getting better all the time), I also ordered a new main. Then of course there are the annual task like varnishing the companion way boards/wheel/flag staff, etc... not to mention all of the fixed teak once the cover comes off in a few weeks. As always plan to launch May 1st.

[Jim Walsh]

I also noticed your comment on the black rubbery stuff between the shoe and the keel, whats up with that? I wonder what CD was thinking..

That’s just bedding compound. Had they not done that and used something like fiberglass fibers and epoxy, removal would have been much more “fun”.

[Frenchy]

Thanks for enlightening me, John. I thought the stop supported the weight of the rudder. I've never
looked at it. - Jean

[Keith]

Indeed it would have been, Jim

[John Stone]

I also noticed your comment on the black rubbery stuff between the shoe and the keel, whats up with that? I wonder what CD was thinking.

Keith, I don’t remember making that comment.... In this thread or on my website? Can you point me to that statement? I have read back through everything but don’t see it.

Thanks
John

[Jim Walsh]

I also noticed your comment on the black rubbery stuff between the shoe and the keel, whats up with that? I wonder what CD was thinking.

Keith, I don’t remember making that comment.... In this thread or on my website? Can you point me to that statement? I have read back through everything but don’t see it.

Thanks
John

This is what I surmised was referred to ,
“The picture to the left depicts the work being done to prep the area for reinstalling the bronze rudder shoe. I still have more sanding to do and cleaning to do to remove all traces of the flexible compound that was underneath the shoe itself. “

[Keith]

Hi John,

The comment that Jim highlighted is what I was refering to "remove all traces of the flexible compound that was underneath the shoe itself". I assumed that what you called flexible compound was what I was calling the black rubbery stuff. Perhaps I was mistaken.

Keith

[John Stone]

Hi John,

The comment that Jim highlighted is what I was refering to "remove all traces of the flexible compound that was underneath the shoe itself". I assumed that what you called flexible compound was what I was calling the black rubbery stuff. Perhaps I was mistaken.

Keith

LOL. Nah. I just thought I had wrote all that and it surprised me—not that it wasn’t possible. I just got curious is all.

“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” —Cool Hand Luke

[Keith]

love that movie and specifically that line.

[Keith]

Hi all,

Here's my latest update on the loose rudder issue. On Saturday I was able to get a good look up inside the hole in the bottom of the rudder and sure enough there is a cup up inside there (see pics below). The cup on mine is definitely bronze. I scraped the top and sides to confirm. Not sure if the pics will show it on this site. The depth to the top of the cup is about 3" and the pintle is about 3 3/4 " so that confirms that the top of the cup rides on the top of the pintle to support the weight of the rudder which is easily confirmed by simply pushing the pintle/shoe assembly up into the hole and sure enough it bottoms out with about 3/4" space between the bottom of the rudder and the top of the shoe. The cup does not come all the way down to the bottom of the rudder hole so there is about 1" of fiberglass as you look up the hole then you can see the bronze cup for the next 2" to the top of the cup. The curious thing to me is that the hole diameter is 1 1/8" in the bronze cup and even about 1 1/4" in the fiberglass lead in portion. Now 1/8"-1/4" doesn't sound like a lot of play but when you side load the bottom of the rudder port to starboard the amount of play is surprising and makes quite a bangs which I described earlier in this thread.

So now that I know exactly what I'm dealing with I have decided to go with Johns method of the delrin bushing. I have designed what I need and ordered the material then will get it turned to my dimensions. I received the bronze sleeves from McMaster but the are designed for a 1" precision ground shaft which would be to the minus side of 1" our pintles are not precision ground. I would have to take the pintle diameter down at least a few thousands and quite frankly I think it would be to tight of a fit SS to bronze. I had a similar issue on a boat years ago where salt crystals bound up a SS shaft to a bronze bushing and it was hell to free it up. It turns out the solution was lots and lots of hot water to dissolve the salt crystals. But I digress. Bottom line now that I know the bronze cup is taking all of the axial load the delrin bushing will be perfect to take up the lateral load and eliminate the banging.

bronze cup in rudder 1.jpg (50.06 KiB) Viewed 638 times

bronze cup in rudder 2.jpg (42.06 KiB) Viewed 638 times

I'll post pics of the bushing and final instal when completed.

Keith

[John Stone]

Well done Keith. Good work. Keep us posted.

[Keith]

Now that the sailing season is over in New England I just realized that I never updated this repair. Sorry sailing kinda got in the way!!!

I got the delrin bushing machined to my design and with a little bit of sanding got what I deemed to be a perfect fit on the pintle and into the bronze rudder bushing.

delrin bushing on pintle.jpg (141.18 KiB) Viewed 603 times

The next issue to deal with was the extremely porous glass buildup at the back of the keel where the shoe attaches. As you can see from the pics there were large worm like holes and chunks that fell off.

worm holes and loose chunks.jpg (86.54 KiB) Viewed 603 times

I painstakingly built it back up with epoxy and glass. Lots of iterations of glassing and sanding to get it right. But alas I was victorious.

rebuilt keel .jpg (122.58 KiB) Viewed 603 times

[Keith]

The next challenge was peening over the four bronze pins with out a helper on the other side. I got inventive with a c-clamp and chisel.

backer for peening bronze pins.jpg (137.29 KiB) Viewed 603 times

Next I glassed over the shoe, barrier coated and applied bottom paint.

glassed over, faired and ready for barrier coat and bottom paint.jpg (113.39 KiB) Viewed 603 times

Then launch!

2020 launch.jpg (118.29 KiB) Viewed 603 times

Final update!!!! I Logged approximately 3000 nm this season and the rudder has zero lateral play. It's great when a plan works out!!!

[John Stone]

Great job. You have every reason to be proud of that repair. I am willing to wager you did a better job than most “professional” boat yards would do.