During our trip through the Great Lakes I could feel a thump when the boat was rolled. It felt like it was coming from the rudder, but you can only imagine all of the possibilities that ran through my head. When we had the boat pulled, the first thing that I did was to figure out what was causing the thump. I found that the outer chase of the lower rudder bearing wasn’t in contact with the rudder tube. There was less than 1/16" all around the bearing as shown in the photo below.
The outer chase of the bearing rotates when the rudder is turned. If I insert something between the chase and the tube to keep it from rotating, the inner part of the bearing (I don’t know what the correct term for this is) rotates smoothly, so I believe that the bearing is in OK condition. These are Tides Marine bearings (http://tidesmarine.com/rudder-bearings.html) and are machined out of a single piece of UHMW-PE, have no metal, and are designed to last for a “lifetime.” The lower bearing is press-fit into the rudder tube and the 2.5" carbon fiber rudder stock is epoxied to inner part of the lower bearing.
The entire rudder hangs on an upper bearing, which is made of the same material. The carbon fiber rudder stock is though-bolted at the top, so it should be next to impossible for it to drop. Based upon old photos that I have of the rudder assembly, it appears that the rudder hasn’t dropped and that it has simply come loose from the from the tube. After discussing this with Dave Balfour, who ran the group who commissioned the boat for Freedom, we both feel that’s the correct answer. Ideally I’d drop the rudder and install a new bearing, but that opens up a can of worms due to having to grind the epoxy off of the rudder stock, etc, and the feeling that it would be of limited value.
So, the suggestion at this point is to insert some material between the out race and the rudder tube to keep it from moving. It has been suggested that I don’t want to epoxy the outer race into place in case I need to replace it. At this point I have 2 suggestions and am looking for comments and/or more suggestions.
Inject a material such as warmed up 4200 using a syringe into the surrounding space.
Epoxy coat some very thin Popsicle sticks and epoxy them into place.
Any additional comments and/or suggestions would be more than welcome. I’m flying back to Milwaukee on Tuesday to implement this and do some other work before the boat gets shipped to CA.
They have a section on rudder bearings and another on installation that recommends adhesives.
Maybe looking at this site or giving them a call would help.
Thanks for the suggestion. The problem is that all of the Loctite materials they recommended or that I found require smaller gaps between the material than I have. I’m kinda stuck in the middle where my gap is too large or I having problems figuring out how to inject a material into the gap due to it being too small.
Geoff, just throwing this out there but. Could you rig a thin file to your sawzall and cut a slim keyway on two sides? Then you could tap an appropriate tapered shim into the slot, thus restoring the friction fit but with the added benefit of locking it from rotation with keys?
There’s less than 1/16" between the outer race and the tube. I can’t imagine what I could get in there to cut a keyway. I have some very fine files, but I’d have the problem of how to keep it from grinding the fiberglass tube.
I would say that anything that you push in from the bottom, will drop out sooner or later, epoxied in or not. Just another idea, wouldn’t it be possible to access the bearing area from inside the boat and put in a horizontal set screw to prevent the rotation and keep any shim material, that you use to fill the gap, in place?
My thought right now is to use 0.060" nylon sheet as the spacer and to hold it in place with Gorilla Glue, which is a waterproof glue that expands during installation when placed in contact with water. This will fill in any gaps. The nylon will absorb water and expand, providing a mechanical bond between itself and the bearing.
I’m happy to report that the rudder bearing has been stabilized. After looking at the bearing I could see that there was virtually no play in it, and that’s after 40,000 miles on the boat. The only play was about .060" side to side in the tube and virtually nothing front to back. The nylon sheet that I had was .060" and I sanded that using a belt sander into 1" wedges about .030" at the thickest part and going down to a thin edge at the narrowest. I slid these into the sides where the gap was the widest.
I decided to glue the entire bearing as I was worried that when the bearing was side loaded that it might pull away from the rudder tube, so I used a horse syringe with a 2" long #14 needle (purchased at Farm and Fleet) to inject glue into widest spot. I then used the rudder to turn the outer chase and distribute the glue. I repeated this until I had coated the entire outer chase and then I re-inserted the nylon wedges.
Gorilla Glue expands about 4x, so I spent a while collecting glue it was forced out of the gap. After about 2 hours I checked and the bearing was locked in place and there was no side to side movement. Hopefully this will be a long term solution.
