I thought I posted this here a long time ago, but I can't find it, so lets put it here.
Getting the rudder off and back on again is explained below. Also I have the print of the design that Bruce King made for modifying the rudder after the IOR rule changes. I would recommend making the rudder bigger per the drawings if you are going to go to all that work in the first place. Bruce has closed up shop now, so if you want the drawings I can have them printed at the local kinkos for something like $20.00 plus mail. (They are full sized prints...) YOU REALLY NEED TO MAKE THE RUDDER BIGGER PER Bruce Kings DRAWINGS when you fix it. The boat behaves a lot better!!!!
A note on the photos, I didn't have a camera when I did the rudder on the 39's I have done, so this is digital photos of my E-46. Except that the 46 rudder is bigger they are identical in construction placement, attachment and the like.
OK how to get this across....... First included here are a four photos, one of the area of the boat where the gudgeon is, one a close-up of the gudgeon and the other of the rudder having been removed showing the gudgeon. The gudgeon attaches the rudder to the lower skeg the gudgeon is attached to the rudder tube and comes off the boat with the rudder!!!!! You have to remove it from the boat, it stays attached to the rudder.
So here are the steps:
1> Remove all of the steering gear off of the rudder shaft.
2> Remove the rudder packing gland ring bolts, (4), and the packing out of the gland.
3> Go outside the boat
4> While wearing safety glasses, using a wire wheel on a grinder, remove about 6-8" of fairing just forward of the rudder on the bottom side of the skeg. This will expose the Gudgeon, or as you stated "lower skeg fitting on which the rudder sits".
5> Clean the Machine Screw heads that are now exposed, remove any fairing compound from the gudgeon (The large brass piece that you can now see). Also remove the bedding or fairing compound that is between the gudgeon and the sides of the molded in gudgeon socket.
5a> Support the rudder with wood or what have you from the outside, so that it does not fall on the person operating the screwdriver outside the boat (Might be you, might be whoever you can sucker into this.)
6> Send your BEST double jointed greased midget into the cockpit locker.
7> Have double jointed greased midget hold the nuts on the top of the skeg.
Note this is at the bottom of the skeg, and a bit hard to get to. Hence the midget. (Note on one boat I have been on, these nuts were glassed over.
Don't know if that was the factory, or a later owner. It is Apparent if they are, as they look like glassed over nuts. Should this be the case in your boat, then you have to hand the midget the grinder and have him or her gently take the glass off of the nuts, while not messing up the nuts. Or the hull next to the nuts, or getting his or her face involved in the grinder etc.((See why we used you BEST midget
) )
8> Once the bolts are off the rudder will most likely fall out. (That is why we have the wood there!)
9> Get three large guys (Buy the midget a bear, give him whatever he wants, hug him tell him he would have made a better Frodo and that Peter Jackson never knew anything about casting anyway, and send him on his way, we won't have need of him till the spring when we go to put the rudder back in.) Remove the rudder by gently turning it from side to side as it slips out. IT IS HEAVY!!!! You might have to break the bedding loose from the gudgeon if it sticks.
10> Place the rudder in the back of a pickup. DON'T put it on the ground, it is really hard to get off the ground if you put it there, even with four big guys. (Note small g on guys).
Reverse directions in the spring using tons and tons of sikaflex 291 bedding compound on the gudgeon, Don't forget to place the packing gland ring back on the shaft.... And fair out the gudgeon again (Or not depending on your feelings about hydrodynamic flow and aesthetics... however the 15 minutes this takes make it look a lot more professional)
I modified the existing rudder using the plans from Bruce King. I did vacuum bag the rudder, and used carbon fiber for exceptional strength in the addition. Take a good look at your rudder shaft and split the rudder to start your repair and look at the internal web before you make a decision about fixing it and what is required. In either case, you can generally do the work yourself it you want.
Foss Foam here in Ca claims that they have a rudder that works. It does not. There are three Ericson 39's that have them, and all of them are going to have to redo the rudder again to have it actually steer the boat.
To give you an idea of how well it backs after the mod....I backed off a side tie, in 30 knots of beam wind, down the fairway turned around and piloted out of the marina. The friend of mine who was aboard to handle the lines has been boating for 20 years, stood there with his mouth literally open gaping at what he saw....
Guy
