Teranodon
Member III
When I was sailing back to Friday Harbor from the Ericson rendezvous at Maple Bay, I noticed that the wheel was resisting me when turning to starboard, sometimes accompanied by a groaning/grinding noise. When I got to my slip I crawled into the quarterberth and dropped the cover under the pedestal. Surprise! There was a track of fine brass powder (photo). One of the sheaves was wedging itself against the big brass plate that it's mounted in, and the cable was rubbing its way around the sheave, sprinkling metal like fairy dust.
To work on the sheave means dropping the big plate, i.e., undoing the nuts on the four 1/2-inch bolts that hold the Edson pedestal. Second surprise: as soon as I got a socket on a nut and started turning, the bolt broke like a piece of rotten wood. Happened three times. What a place for mild steel fasteners!
Dropping the plate is tedious. Have to unlink the throttle and transmission cables, and the two wire ropes that go from the sheaves to the quadrant (#*$%! rusty wire rope clamps!). Plus some electrical wires. Anyway, the real shocker was discovering the source of the steering problem. One of the 3/8-inch brass pins that the sheaves rotate on was almost completely gone, as though it had been milled through (see photo, which shows the undamaged pin as well). Yikes! The sheave itself was undamaged - there is a hardened bushing in the center.
I replaced the offending item with a $4 stainless Clevis pin from Ace Hardware. So that’s fixed, but now I’m left with a serious challenge: replacing the 1/2-inch bolts that hold the pedestal. They simply won’t budge, and three of them are broken right under the deck. I left them sitting in a puddle of penetrating oil (photo) and am asking fellow Ericson owners: any advice on getting these bolts out? Do I have to resort to brute force (drilling and tapping the heads)? And why are the hex heads of the bolts buried in the base so that you can’t grab them? Please don’t tell me that they are screwed into the base. What a design!
Since I have the top of the pedestal off, I’m going to remove the chain and swaged wire steering ropes (there are a couple of broken strands). I will also try to fix the wheel brake. There is a missing washer so the brake doesn't work at all (I wonder what birdbrain left it that way). Unfortunately, the 1/4-20 screws that hold the plate for the brake jaws are frozen too, but that’s another matter.
So that’s my sad story. Has anyone else had a problem with these bolts? What’s a good way to proceed?
Stefan
P.S. I already know one moral to the story: keep that steering mechanism lubricated!
To work on the sheave means dropping the big plate, i.e., undoing the nuts on the four 1/2-inch bolts that hold the Edson pedestal. Second surprise: as soon as I got a socket on a nut and started turning, the bolt broke like a piece of rotten wood. Happened three times. What a place for mild steel fasteners!
Dropping the plate is tedious. Have to unlink the throttle and transmission cables, and the two wire ropes that go from the sheaves to the quadrant (#*$%! rusty wire rope clamps!). Plus some electrical wires. Anyway, the real shocker was discovering the source of the steering problem. One of the 3/8-inch brass pins that the sheaves rotate on was almost completely gone, as though it had been milled through (see photo, which shows the undamaged pin as well). Yikes! The sheave itself was undamaged - there is a hardened bushing in the center.
I replaced the offending item with a $4 stainless Clevis pin from Ace Hardware. So that’s fixed, but now I’m left with a serious challenge: replacing the 1/2-inch bolts that hold the pedestal. They simply won’t budge, and three of them are broken right under the deck. I left them sitting in a puddle of penetrating oil (photo) and am asking fellow Ericson owners: any advice on getting these bolts out? Do I have to resort to brute force (drilling and tapping the heads)? And why are the hex heads of the bolts buried in the base so that you can’t grab them? Please don’t tell me that they are screwed into the base. What a design!
Since I have the top of the pedestal off, I’m going to remove the chain and swaged wire steering ropes (there are a couple of broken strands). I will also try to fix the wheel brake. There is a missing washer so the brake doesn't work at all (I wonder what birdbrain left it that way). Unfortunately, the 1/4-20 screws that hold the plate for the brake jaws are frozen too, but that’s another matter.
So that’s my sad story. Has anyone else had a problem with these bolts? What’s a good way to proceed?
Stefan
P.S. I already know one moral to the story: keep that steering mechanism lubricated!