Rudder Bearings Replacement and Availability

[D&M]

Hi all,
We have just had Sea Lanes on the hard stand for two weeks for a keel repair after grounding and some new rudder bearings. It turned into a bit of lengthy process and what follows is a long, detailed insight:

Firstly the keel; the solid nature of the lead keel made it a simple affair to gently tap some displaced lead back into place. We then followed the instructions in the West System manual to cover the lead which was exposed. Here is a picture of the back of the keel showing the lead protruding to the left:

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A ball pean hammer is all that is needed to gently and slowly tap the lead back into shape.

Next on the list was the rudder bearings and this is where the fun started.
The first issue we ran into should have been easily overcome, but sometimes people use a lot of sealant to help keep water out. This turned out to be the case for that square plate surrounding the emergency till cover for us. Three hours of patiently removing sealant to allow us to lift the cover plate with out breaking it, led to a lot of cursing, but eventually it gave up the fight and allowed access to the bolt on the top of the rudder.

Now if anyone has tried to order a replacement rudder bearing from CD lately they will note they are not available. In Australia there is no alternative available so we had to adapt. A call to our local milling and engineering firm resulted in them assuring us they could turn new bearings from the old using a rod of Delrin material. So with that in mind we dug a hole and dropped the rudder. All good so far. Then it was time to remove the bottom bearing and it did not want to come out! So after removing the middle and upper bearings we then attacked (the right word) the lower bearing using a bar and four pound hammer. Many whacks later it started to move and finally the 5200 or whatever was holding it in started to slowly relent. Eventually the bearing slid down bringing a thick film of (presumably) 5200 with it. interestingly there were only two of the four screws used in the bottom bearing left in place.
Here is the bearing in place with some hack saw cuts in an attempt to coax it out:

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And some after shots of the bearing sleeve with the 5200 still hanging down and yet to be cut away.

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After cleaning up the bearing sleeve it was apparent we had removed some fairing/glass around the tube:

IMG_4187.jpg (216.65 KiB) Viewed 1338 times

And this had to be faired with epoxy prior to installing a new bearing.

True to their word Ansell Engineering came up with a new bottom bearing, part of the middle bearing and shimmed the internal of the top bearing. We also decided in consultation with them to not put any sealant into rudder tube but to use o rings in the bearing outers there by not requiring any form of sealant. inside the rudder tube.
New bottom bearing:

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Middle bearing:

IMG_4194.jpg (224.46 KiB) Viewed 1338 times

Top bearing showing shim:

IMG_4197.jpg (231.06 KiB) Viewed 1338 times

Note that when we refitted the rudder after resealing the bottom of the tube and painting the top of the rudder with three coats of bottom paint I was concerned the unit was not going to fit easily back into place. My fears were well founded as although all of the bearing parts fitted snugly and were well machined. It turns out too much paint and may too much epoxy meant the bolt at the top of the rudder could not be slid back into place easily and need two mm extra clearance. We decided to take the two mm off the top bearing and this allowed us to put the bolt back into place easily.

Next we figured we would replace the engine damper based on a rattle at idle that disappeared at higher revs (we have about 650 hours on this engine) as well as lots of black and brown dust toward the rear of the engine compartment floor. At this point the guys from Ansell, pointed out the PSS seal was at least 8 years old based on the fact the inlet connector for the cooling water was plastic not metal. So we included the PSS seal in the deal. This lead to a day of coaxing the shaft flange off, but enough people have covered this problem in detail before. Suffice to say - what a pain.

Of note the adapter plate appeared to be in pretty good condition and I suspect we will not see much improvement with its replacement oh well:

IMG_4201.jpg (206.16 KiB) Viewed 1338 times

Whilst we had no leaks at the PSS seal and the shaft bearing seemed tight, after all of the pounding on the shaft to remove the flange we decided to replace the bearing as well. Turns out it was burned in places.

New Cutlass bearing:

IMG_4203.jpg (174.99 KiB) Viewed 1338 times

And finally a new Kiwi feathering prop based on price and availability in Australia with the time constraint of only having one week left in the yard.

This all happened just over two weeks ago. Of note, the rudder is very snug and working very well. All of its previous shudders are gone. The engine idle rattle has lessened but is still there. Unfortunately even though the Kiwi prop was set to the specifications for a C350 with the M35B engine and 1.88 ratio I can only achieve 2300 rpm at WOT under load. in neutral it will go all the way to 3000. So I will be using a diver to help set another degree of pitch as it is way overpropped right now. It is much better in reverse and stops immediately, though it does back up quickly with the fixed pitch in reverse. Care needs to be taken not to overshoot the berth when in reverse!

A final word of warning and unrelated to this repair. When climbing out of the main lazarette I noticed there were no nuts holding the five bolts attached to the bottom of the starboard Genoa winch in place. I have been using this winch since I bought the boat nearly a year ago with the winch held in place by the bolts being screwed into the fibreglass deck. I don't know if this was a Monday morning install at the factory or if the PO removed them at some point and failed to put them back, but it goes to show, there is always a surprise somewhere aboard.

[KenKrawford]

David, very nice write up on your repairs. Were your rudder problems related to the grounding or just the result of time & wear?

Regarding the winch fasteners, I think if you examine everything bolted to the deck you’ll find the same arrangement. Catalina uses tapped metal backing plates in place of nuts. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to add nuts if you want a “belt & suspenders” approach.

[D&M]

Thanks Ken,
I was hoping that was the case and I unreservedly withdraw the crack about the Monday morning install . I should have been convinced when last year I added an extra spinlock clutch in front of the electric winch and discovered the embedded backing plate when I removed the clam cleat that was there.

The rudder repair was due to movement when sailing down wind and down swell. There was just a faint knocking noise when doing that. I removed the tiller access plate whilst underway and observed a very small movement in the top of the post and figured it was a bigger movement at the bottom. When we put up on the hard, the movement was still only about 3-4mm front to rear at the bottom of the rudder and nil side to side. In all honesty I though it was okay to put back but others convinced me to do the job, plus I had already booked the hardstand time and in Far North Qld that is hard to get.

One thing I forgot to mention was the o ring on the emergency tiller access plate. Whilst it was still there, it was so old and thin it was doing little to seal the water out of the top-of-rudder compartment. I sourced a new one from a local bearing supplier. it was the same diameter but about a mm or two thicker when new. A good one for people to check.

[ccvalentino]

David,

Thank you for the detailed write up.

Earlier this season, when Dreams of Blue was on the hard I reset my lower bearing. The 3M4200 had completely dried up from 16 years of service and it was free spinning around the rudder post. I had a little knocking when my wheel was hard over.

I was able to purchase a bearing kit direct from Catalina Yachts. The parts manager, Lucas, was very helpful and told me this was a part the keep in stock as it fits more than the 350. I ended up not using the kit. I had sent some videos of the bearing spinning and Gerry Douglas (designer of the 350), told me to just drop the rudder enough to expose the bearing and replace the old 3M4200 with new 3M4200.

All worked out great.

Chris

[Bob_A]

Excellent and thorough write up David!
Thank-you for taking the time to do this.