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Rudder bushing question

bsangs

E35-3 - New Jersey
So...God knows I've read about many hacks since joining the sailing community, but this is a new one. Still in contact with the previous owner of my boat, which is nice when I have any questions, and while we were talking recently, he told me about his rudder bushing "replacement" a few years back while he was down in Annapolis. He'd dropped the rudder and needed to replace the bushing, but time being an issue, couldn't wait around for a replacement. So some Old Salt shipyard tech used a two-liter bottle (or one liter, not entirely certain) with the top and bottom removed as a "bushing." I said, "Wait, you had it replaced since then, right?" And was stunned when the answer was, "No." He'd been sailing with that bottle as the bushing for several years, and now I am sailing with that bottle as a bushing. I had no rudder issues last season, outside a tiny leak that I planned to solve by pumping grease through a zerk, but now I'm a bit concerned, shall we say. Anybody familiar with this hack? And how quickly should I have the bushing replaced with an actual bushing, instead of using a Mountain Dew bottle? :egrin:
 

Jerry VB

E32-3 / M-25XP
I'm not a mechanical engineer (don't even play one on TV) but...

I would call the fix a shim, not a bushing. Shims fill the gap left by wear; a bushing replaces the warn bushing. People have been shimming rudder stocks for decades, especially on the lower bearing. In the stories I've read, people mostly shim with bronze shim stock. McMaster-Carr sells various thicknesses of shim stock made of many different materials.

Plastic shim stock is a viable option. If the shimming is planned vs. ad-hoc, PET (aka. pop bottle) would not be my first choice - I would look at a more "slippery" type of plastic. If you buy new plastic shim stock, you will want to use a plastic that does not absorb water and swell. Bronze shim stock obviously doesn't have that problem.

The big question when buying shim stock is how thick it should be to fill the gap. You have an advantage here; you know the thickness of a typical 2 liter pop bottle is working on your boat. By sacrificing a couple of pop bottles and measuring their wall thickness (good excuse to buy a micrometer), you will have a good estimate.

In my opinion, your shim is still working and thus there is no urgency to replace it. With your boat out of the water, If you don't have significant play in the rudder, the shim is still working. It is somewhat harder to judge when in the water, but if your rudder doesn't "thump" when sailing in quartering waves (where the waves are pushing the stern back and forth laterally), I would say your shim is still working. (Bushing wear will mostly be side-to-side because that is the dominate direction of the load.)
 

bsangs

E35-3 - New Jersey
I'm not a mechanical engineer (don't even play one on TV) but...

I would call the fix a shim, not a bushing. Shims fill the gap left by wear; a bushing replaces the warn bushing. People have been shimming rudder stocks for decades, especially on the lower bearing. In the stories I've read, people mostly shim with bronze shim stock. McMaster-Carr sells various thicknesses of shim stock made of many different materials.

Plastic shim stock is a viable option. If the shimming is planned vs. ad-hoc, PET (aka. pop bottle) would not be my first choice - I would look at a more "slippery" type of plastic. If you buy new plastic shim stock, you will want to use a plastic that does not absorb water and swell. Bronze shim stock obviously doesn't have that problem.

The big question when buying shim stock is how thick it should be to fill the gap. You have an advantage here; you know the thickness of a typical 2 liter pop bottle is working on your boat. By sacrificing a couple of pop bottles and measuring their wall thickness (good excuse to buy a micrometer), you will have a good estimate.

In my opinion, your shim is still working and thus there is no urgency to replace it. With your boat out of the water, If you don't have significant play in the rudder, the shim is still working. It is somewhat harder to judge when in the water, but if your rudder doesn't "thump" when sailing in quartering waves (where the waves are pushing the stern back and forth laterally), I would say your shim is still working. (Bushing wear will mostly be side-to-side because that is the dominate direction of the load.)

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation Jerry.
 

Pete the Cat

Member III
I am not necessarily advocating this and it was early in my boatyard work experience, but in the discussion of "shimming the lower rudder stock bearing" I fixed the lower sloppy bearing of of a Ranger 23 many decades ago by simply dropping the rudder a foot or so, cleaning it up and coating the lower 1 ft of the shaft with mold release wax. I then mixed up some epoxy thickened with high density filler and carefully shoved the rudder back into position with tape to keep the stuff in place. Overnight, I had a very nice, tight bearing that never caused any difficulty--I sailed that boat thousands of miles after in all kinds of conditions on SF Bay. I had previously tried to shim the slop with bronze shim material and the problem was that it, sooner or later, seemed to work itself out and it would start clunking again. The epoxy solution seemed easy. Some of this would be contingent on your experience with epoxy and its shrinkage. Regular old West System and its high density fillers is what I used. I know that some epoxy products have more or less shrinkage with various fillers, but I took the risk and it worked out well.
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Ray's solution is mentioned in several repair books about epoxy use. Along with warnings about what happens if not enough release wax is used! :)
For more "research" on the subject of field repairs, specifically bearings.... read the fine novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" .
:cool:
 

Alan Gomes

Sustaining Partner
Ray's solution is mentioned in several repair books about epoxy use. Along with warnings about what happens if not enough release wax is used! :)
For more "research" on the subject of field repairs, specifically bearings.... read the fine novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" .
:cool:
I think the epoxy "repair"--at least as WestSystem presents it--is really dumb on a number of levels. First, it is a disaster waiting to happen. Neil (aka "Parrothead") could jump in here and share his experience in coaching a poor soul who (fortunately) was eventually able to free his rudder post with Neil's help after an ill-fated attempt at this repair. I've gone ahead and attached a .PDF of a discussion thread on this. Nightmare material.

But second, this repair adds a bunch of unnecessary friction to the system. Structurally speaking, the rudder post only bears load on the top and the bottom, i.e., where the post exits on the top (e.g., emerging from the cockpit sole as on my boat, or whatever) and at the bottom, where it exits the hull. The rudder tube in-between is simply to keep the water out of the boat and could, in theory, be anything that would prevent the water ingress (e.g., a rubber hose, in principle). The epoxy "fix" creates an unnecessary bearing surface along the entire length of the rudder post, but to no good purpose.

On my own tiller-steered E26, I added some stainless steel shim stock from McMaster-Carr, top and bottom. I purchased three different thicknesses with the following part numbers, so I could experiment, as follows: 2317K13: .003" stock; 2317K14: .004" stock; 2317K15: .005" stock. Something around .004" thick did the trick, top and bottom. I greased the shims with Teflon grease (SuperLube) and I have very good performance: no real play to speak of and little friction.

As part of my normal haul out regimen, I drop the rudder (which is quite easy on my boat), clean and re-grease the shims, and then reinsert. Frankly, everything has been working fine and I'm sure I could do it every few haul outs, but it is a simple task so I clean and re-grease at each haul out "just because."

I'm attaching a drawing that Neil made for anyone who wants to go this route. I'm also attaching a .PDF of a thread that shows what can go awry with that really dumb epoxy "fix."

It is not necessary to haul your boat to add the shims. The one on the top is accessible from inside the boat, of course, and I had my diver assist insert the one from below, because at the time I first added these I was in-between haul outs.

BTW: I noticed that Ray's suggested epoxy fix only seemed to provide a bearing surface for the lower 1' or so of the rudder tube--if I read him right. That makes a good deal more sense to me than the West System fix, which involves the entire rudder tube. Much less potential for things to go sideways and more effective to boot. Still, I've had virtually no wear on those stainless shims and installation is trivial, so that's the route I favor. Plus, mine has been in for years and has not worked itself out, when installed per Neil's diagram. It also allows me to easily shim the top bearing surface without having to fill up the entire rudder tube with epoxy.
 

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Nick J

Sustaining Member
Moderator
Blogs Author
It sounds like there is some confusion between multiple sources for instructions. If you read the west system repair manual, it details a method to ensure only the bottom section of the rudder shaft log is filled with the epoxy bearing surface. It also details a method of injecting the epoxy instead of pouring from the top and stresses the importance of properly prepping the shaft and applying mold release. I haven't done this before, but the West System instructions seem like a very well thought out method. The method discussed in the attached thread have some important differences that made a huge impact.
 

Alan Gomes

Sustaining Partner
It sounds like there is some confusion between multiple sources for instructions. If you read the west system repair manual, it details a method to ensure only the bottom section of the rudder shaft log is filled with the epoxy bearing surface. It also details a method of injecting the epoxy instead of pouring from the top and stresses the importance of properly prepping the shaft and applying mold release. I haven't done this before, but the West System instructions seem like a very well thought out method. The method discussed in the attached thread have some important differences that made a huge impact.
Thanks for pointing this out. I did not compare the methods side-by-side and perhaps wrongly assumed that they were one and the same. And yes, the West System approach, as you have described it, would certainly be the better of the two!

That said, on my boat I found it optimal to shim both top and the bottom. I'm not sure how the West System fix would handle that--though I suppose you could always split the difference and do West's fix on the bottom and install shims at the top. Still, for me, the cost of the shims is trivial, the installation simple, and the result so good that I'm not sure why I would want to mess with the WS approach. The shim material is inexpensive enough to where I was able to purchase different thicknesses and through a small bit of trial and error dial in just the thickness I wanted.
 

Nick J

Sustaining Member
Moderator
Blogs Author
Maybe Catalina changed their method, but if you look at it now, it's exactly the same as the West system method. The thread you posted brought up some critical points like the initial quality of the rudder shaft and the current condition. West System may have glossed over the potential of a less than quality rudder post. It also mentioned using tape as a mold release which would cause a lot of issues when used in this application. This is a good example of getting what you pay for when looking for advise on the internet (Ericson Forum excluded, of course).

I can't remember what was on my 25+, but the 35-3 has a bronze bearing housing (not sure if that's the correct term). This is different from the bottom surface as it is removeable and can be replaced with something entirely different. The bottom surface is part of the hull structure.

The shim method is probably the more tried and true solution and what the previous owner did on my boat. Both good solutions and both with their advantages and disadvantages. Just have to make sure we're comparing the correct application of the method before deciding on which way to go.
 

Dave G.

1984 E30+ Ludington, MI
In the FWIW category... A couple of years ago I had to drop my rudder to remove the prop shaft. When I did I found brass shim material wrapped around the bottom of the rudder shaft. It was thin stock with a few wraps in it that was kind of spiraled up the shaft. And while I didn't mic the 2 surfaces I would say I had no more than a 1/16 of play without the shim. After a few attempts at using teflon/ptfe type shims I realized keeping the material in the right place would involve adhering to one surface or the other... I Digress.. I then saw Christian's blog about greasing the rudder and realized there was "0" grease in my rudder tube?? So after I got the Zerks(2) to work I filled the tube with grease until it oozed a little out of both ends and voila no play to this day and no shim needed.
 

Pete the Cat

Member III
It sounds like there is some confusion between multiple sources for instructions. If you read the west system repair manual, it details a method to ensure only the bottom section of the rudder shaft log is filled with the epoxy bearing surface. It also details a method of injecting the epoxy instead of pouring from the top and stresses the importance of properly prepping the shaft and applying mold release. I haven't done this before, but the West System instructions seem like a very well thought out method. The method discussed in the attached thread have some important differences that made a huge impact.
Yes. This is what I did without the benefit of any written instruction. I certainly did not pour it from the top and only put a very thick ring (putty, not liquid at all) of dense filler at the bottom opening before blocking the rudder back in place. It didn't add any friction at all to the helm. The boat is still being sailed on SF Bay some 40 years later as a sail trainer. I had tried to shim with metal numerous times (in the yard at haulout) and every time the stuff fell out eventually--I was racing the boat at the time and it is SF Bay. I thought about securing the shims with a bit of epoxy and then realized that a ring of hardened epoxy would be preferable to putting some dissimilar metals in there to continuously score and promote electrolysis on the SS rudder post. We used the dense adhesive fillers to mount winches on racing boats in the yard--I had experience with it-- and I appreciated that the result was nearly as hard as metal. If you have not worked with epoxy thickeners (mixing consistency was important--you might need a practice run to get it thick enough before it goes off--it takes a lot of filler and aggressive stirring-- and taping and waxing so the stuff does not get all over the place--important with any epoxy project, but especially here) and mold release wax (I find it hard to understand how this could be screwed up, but you need to be clean and use wax liberally) based on my experience, I would prefer this process to trying to put metal in there.
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
If anybody reading this in the next ten years arrives here because of a sloppy rudder, which clunks when tacking, first check the top rudder-post bearing bolted to the cockpit floor. Typically that bearing* gets loose, causing rudder wobble not related to the bottom bearing at all.

The issue can't be seen from the cockpit, but if that's it, a crawl under to tighten the bolts is an instant fix.

*"Bronze rudder post deck flange w/grease fitting"

Ericson rudder tube.jpg
 
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bsangs

E35-3 - New Jersey
If anybody reading this in the next ten years arrives here because of a sloppy rudder, which clunks when tacking, first check the top rudder-post bearing bolted to the cockpit floor. Typically that bearing* gets loose, causing rudder wobble not related to the bottom bearing at all.

The issue can't be seen from the cockpit, but if that's it, a crawl under to tighten the bolts is an instant fix.

*"Bronze rudder post deck flange w/grease fitting"

View attachment 45618
Hey Christian? Where exactly did you drill your new zerk fitting for grease in that diagram? Or better yet, where would you suggest drilling the new one on mine?
 

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Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Some photos at the end of this blog entry. I left the old rusted one where it was , the new one was at about the same latitude but a different longitude. I'm also happy with the half-inch Zerk, which is heftier than automotive-size. Might need to change the tip on the grease gun.

zerks capture.JPG

 

Jerry VB

E32-3 / M-25XP
The lower zerk should be below the flange in your pictures. There is something pointing directly at the camera; I cannot tell if it is the remains of a zerk or just an artifact.

There is a zerk for the upper bearing which will be above the steering quadrant. Christian noted it - it is labeled "Bronze rudder post deck flange w/ grease fit." (label to the right, under "Idler sheave"). A picture of the actual zerk (on my E32) is worth 1000 words. It is nearly impossible to see unless you are in the bowels of the beast.

An endoscope might allow you to see it and plan on how to get to it.
 

bsangs

E35-3 - New Jersey
The lower zerk should be below the flange in your pictures. There is something pointing directly at the camera; I cannot tell if it is the remains of a zerk or just an artifact.

There is a zerk for the upper bearing which will be above the steering quadrant. Christian noted it - it is labeled "Bronze rudder post deck flange w/ grease fit." (label to the right, under "Idler sheave"). A picture of the actual zerk (on my E32) is worth 1000 words. It is nearly impossible to see unless you are in the bowels of the beast.

An endoscope might allow you to see it and plan on how to get to it.
Pretty certain the rust drip you see on the right-most area, just below the flange, is from the existing zerk. I'll be double checking before I do anything though. Thanks to both of you for the photos and links.
 

bsangs

E35-3 - New Jersey
If anybody reading this in the next ten years arrives here because of a sloppy rudder, which clunks when tacking, first check the top rudder-post bearing bolted to the cockpit floor. Typically that bearing* gets loose, causing rudder wobble not related to the bottom bearing at all.

The issue can't be seen from the cockpit, but if that's it, a crawl under to tighten the bolts is an instant fix.

*"Bronze rudder post deck flange w/grease fitting"

View attachment 45618
Hey Christian, does grease need to be put in the upper and lower grease fittings? I ask because my upper grease fitting - while not the easiest thing in the world to access due to it facing fore - is in perfect shape, and the lower one is not, which means I'd have to install my own like you did. But if I can fill the entire post from the top grease fitting, then the condition of the lower one wouldn't matter as much. I don't think. Thanks.
 

Jerry VB

E32-3 / M-25XP
does grease need to be put in the upper and lower grease fittings?
I would strongly recommend filling both.
  • The factory installed two zerks because they felt two were needed.
  • I greased my upper bearing until grease came out the gap by the zerk. Theoretically, around half as much squeezed out the lower side of the bearing but...
    • There is no way to verify that there is grease going down to the lower bearing.
    • There is no way to know when you've injected enough grease to fill down to the lower bearing. The lower bearing zerk takes a tremendous amount of grease - it apparently is filling the rudder tube which also helps keep the water out of the rudder tube. My upper bearing only took a couple of pumps until the grease oozed out of the gap; the lower zerk took a lot of pumps and, even then, I don't think I pumped in enough (on my spring list is to pump more grease in).
    • You will be wasting at least half the grease you inject because half of it will be coming out the upper gap (making a big mess).
 

bsangs

E35-3 - New Jersey
I would strongly recommend filling both.
  • The factory installed two zerks because they felt two were needed.
  • I greased my upper bearing until grease came out the gap by the zerk. Theoretically, around half as much squeezed out the lower side of the bearing but...
    • There is no way to verify that there is grease going down to the lower bearing.
    • There is no way to know when you've injected enough grease to fill down to the lower bearing. The lower bearing zerk takes a tremendous amount of grease - it apparently is filling the rudder tube which also helps keep the water out of the rudder tube. My upper bearing only took a couple of pumps until the grease oozed out of the gap; the lower zerk took a lot of pumps and, even then, I don't think I pumped in enough (on my spring list is to pump more grease in).
    • You will be wasting at least half the grease you inject because half of it will be coming out the upper gap (making a big mess).
Got it. Thanks very much Jerry. Time to put on my contortionist outfit I guess.
 
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