Catalina 350 International Association

I need to replace the cutlass bearing on by boat which will involve removing the shaft. After reading post on the subject, I see that rudder removal is necessary.
Can anyone tell me what is involved in its removal and installation?
Has anyone accomplished shaft removal without dropping the rudder?

Randy
S/V Capt. Nini
294

Randy,

Yes, the rudder has to come out for the prop shaft to come out-- at least that is how we did ours when replacing the cutlass bearing-- would be interested in seeing if anyone has done it without removing the rudder.

Nothing complex, just time consuming to remove steering quadrant, auto pilot arm, etc. Be sure everything is indexed/marked so it can be installed correctly.

Then boat has to be high enough off the ground to allow the rudder to come out.

Brett

The other way to do it is to remove the engine from its mounts and remove the shaft from the inside.

Bill

Hi Bill, have you actually done this? Would seem on the surface that disconnecting and jacking the engine would be simpler than getting the hull to right height, disconnecting all of rudder assembly and lowering and relifting it. Just that I hadn't heard of it being done this way before. The engine would have to go up a long way for the shaft to clear the sump wouldn't it? Any idea how far the shaft has to come inwards before free of the stern tube?

Regards
Russ Peel
Avalon #150

Yes, this is what we did to remove the nylon cutlass bearing when we were trying to trouble shoot the vibration noise. The shaft had to come all the way out so they could push the cutlass bearing out. If you hAve the nylon bearing it can be difficult to get it out. There are those little set screw type locking things that tighten with an Allan wrench in there too. These are just like the normal ones any mechanic would find on the outside hub of the cutlass bearing assembly. Be sure to find those and back them out. If you have the nylon bearing, replace it with the bronze one of course.

After my work with Catalina on this, they changed to bronze bearings the next day, I think they might have been working on hull 300 or so. A lot has been written about this already.

Bill