#426 Refurb/Rework Thread

[JurisG]

I started this thread just to keep all of my boat in one place (as far as this forum is concerned, anyways - the physical pieces are all in Massachusetts!). Going to post some updates on my missions below, and keep doing so as I do work. Hope this is the most streamlined way to do it!

[JurisG]

As I posted in the Rudder Thread, I have the creaky third-plank problem, and probably some rot with my 42 year old rudder (shocking, I know). Using the Ariel Association Manual and the Rudder Thread, I went in to remove it, sand it, evaluate it, and then either epoxy/glass it or rebuild it.

Taking the tiller head apart was a cakewalk. a 1/2" socket and a 1/8" allen head gets you to the Delrin Bearing, which can be easily pried out with 2 flat head screwdrivers, although one should try to do it gently.

The U-shaped strap that supports the rudder on the keel was another story. It was held in with what appeared to be rivets or pins. No screwheads were apparent. Obviously they needed to be drilled out, but I made the mistake of trying to drill a pilot hole with a small drillbit first. Don't even bother, because although it LOOKS like copper, those pins/rivets are as hard as stainless steel. They ate my drillbits, and forced me to knock the heads off with big drillbits (see pics).

Having disassembled the tiller head and removed the strap, I was able to remove the rudder from the rudder shoe, dig a hole, and begin sliding the rudder down. Not so fast. I had a sneaking suspicion that the propeller would be in the way, and it was.

The cotter pin turned to dust when I removed it, so I punched it out with a pin + hammer. I wire-brushed away 42 years of boat paint, and removed the huge nut holding the prop on. And this is where I'm stuck.

The prop WILL NOT BUDGE. I heated it with a propane torch, put a gear puller on there, and beat it with brass pins and hammers for nearly 2 hours, and all I accomplished was collapsing the cotter pin through-hole with the gear puller. I had to leave it with some penetrating oil, and some hope for better ideas next weekend...

Anyone have any idea how to pull the prop? Am I missing something about the rudder removal (does the prop really have to come off)? It looks to me like the only way to NOT remove the prop is if one were to fully disassemble the rudder from the copper shaft, which I don't want to do (in fact, the rudder through-bolt heads are so curved and shaped, I don't know if it would be possible).

Thanks for any advice!

[mbd]

The prop WILL NOT BUDGE. I heated it with a propane torch, put a gear puller on there, and beat it with brass pins and hammers for nearly 2 hours...

Been there, done that.  

Get or borrow a prop puller. It's ridiculously easy with the right tool...

[ebb]

THIS is what this Forum is about.

Those are pins and not bolts.  You put pins in and peen them over into the chamfer so you don't have any heads or nuts sticking out.  Elegant and proper.
The pins of course are not reusable when you remove the fitting.  Just put in new ones which is probably a good idea anyway.


I tried to peen over silicon rod when I re-shoed.  Trouble is every attempt at mushrooming the pin ended up hardening the bronze.  Former owner may have done something similar on your baby.
I should have found some soft copper rod - peened that over - probably very easy to move the metal into the chamfer and probably more secure than I know I ended up with because the siliconbronze rod just stopped moving finally no matter how much &%+!!*&??*#!!! peening I did.  Never really got it close and tight!
I'm not the only one........

Silicon bronze is pretty hard for 98% copper.  Once you get the 'head' drilled off the pin the body should be easy to punch out.
Peening  pins is imco the best way to attach the heel fittting and the gudgeon to the 'keel post'.  Copper rod and the siliconbronze strap should have no galvanic issues being next to each other on the scale.

If you feel the need for a zinc because you notice some pinking or pitting, my Ariel came to me with one of the pins in the heel fitting changed out for a bronze carriage bolt long enough for a zinc guppy to be attached.
I thought it looked funky, but it is an easy way to add a zinc.
Doesn't look like your gudgeon is corroded so you probably have no galvanic action there or by association on the rudder shaft.  In that area.


The O-ring on your sleeve bearing looks fairly new.  Not flattened like it was on A338!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Found a discussion on Wooden Boat Forum on siliconbronze rivets vs copper rod.
One guy put it: Copper rod: Easy on, Easy off.
___________________________________________________
In this forum discussion another poster says you can heat up silicon rod to anneal it.
You'd have the pins cut to size and for convenience have a jig you can peen over one end first.  
You heat to anneal with a torch at above 900 degrees (there is probably a color you heat the bronze to - ebb doesn't know.)
You know, it's like "heat to medium red and quench" - right!
Let the pins cool - use them immediately because the temper returns to siliconbronze in a short while.
(this is hearsay from the WBForum)  
I wonder if the process is repeatable - ie make a head on one side using a hole drilled in a piece of iron plate, depending on the time it takes, heat it up again if necessary and cool to peen the other head on the boat.  
Hmmmm, copper rod looks good right now!

[carl291]

Somewhere someone claimed they went to Electric supply store and bought copper ground wire the size they needed in an X amount of feet went home and cut it into the pins for peening. Just passing it along!

[JurisG]

Combining 2 workdays into 1 here.

So I Rigged up my own prop puller from a bandsaw-cut steel plate, alumium plate, threaded rod, and hardware. It slipped in behind the prop and allowed me to tighten the bolts while putting pressure on the prop via the end of the prop shaft. See the photos below. I used an ultra hot soldering torch to heat the prop up, and with some help, gave the steel plate behind the prop simultaneous whacks on both sides with mallets. As you can see with pictures, the end result was less desirable than I hoped. The shaft sheared at the extreme end, which didn't make ANY sense given where we were applying pressure. In any case, it was the final attempt at a losing strategy.

I finally just banged out the Marine Tex around the rudder hardware, and the rudder came off totally cake! I had to use a dremel w/ cutting wheel to cut deeper screwdriver trenches in the bolt heads, but they basically didn't put up too much of a fight. So, my advice to anyone reading this is: don't try to remove a stubborn prop to remove the rudder unless (1) you've already tried disassembling the rudder in earnest and haven't been able to, or (2) your upper rudder rod (the one that passes through the hull) is somehow damaged or unusable.

In any case, the rudder is off and looks salvageable, so I'm stripping it right now to get it ready for some Marine Tex and some fiberglass. 42 years of bottom paint is turning my driveway into a rainbow.

Also, does anyone know where the most efficient place to mount the bilge pump is? Mine is under the rear-most removable panel on the floor of my main cabin, but I'm not sure if it's actually at the "lowest point" of the bilge.

[ebb]

One for the books.

That's a nice jig.
Better because you can really get behind the prop with it.

Why did you set it North/South
and not East/West which would not have been in the way of the top piece of shaft?  
That's the deruddered top of the shaft there in the pic?

Looks to me (it may be the angle of the foto) that you didn't get a totally strate pull with the jig as you show it and that's why the shaft cracked.

Never realized that you guys with inboard A/Cs cannot just undo the gudgeon and drop the rudder like the OB versions can.


It would be really great to have a blow-by-blow on the options of what it takes to drop the rudder with a prop in.


I assumed you just turned the rudder to 90 degrees and it would slip by the heel fitting
and squirrel around the prop
 - after you uncoupled the gudgeon and removed the top sleeve bearing.

[JurisG]

As far as N/S vs. E/W, the rig could have lined up either way; The reason for the alignment in the pic was so we could beat it on either side with mallets. I took that pic when we were done breaking it - it was lined up pretty well when we were really working it, although you are right - a slight misalignment was probably the cause.

Unfortunately, after removing the handle, gudgeon, and bearing, I tried to remove the rudder (by pushing it, still attached upwards and then downwards into a trench), but it would not slide by the Prop. I tried every which way, but I'm sure it would have required some brute force, and probably some undesired bending of either the rudder shaft or prop shaft to attempt removal with the prop attached. Therefore, I tried to remove the prop, failed, and finally simply disassembled the rudder from the shaft. So, the blow-by-blow of what actually worked was:

1) Remove handle, gudgeon, and delrin bearing.
2) Dig a trench under the rudder (unless the boat is up high or on stilts or something).
3) Drill out the heads of the pins holding the rudder bracket with a large drill bit. Remove the bracket by prying it off and punch out the pins with a hammer and punch (after chiseling the boat paint and maybe even cleaning it up with a dremel that has a wire brush attachment).
4) Push the rudder up (lift it out of the rudder shoe) and drop/turn it until you can get at the three bolt heads holding the rudder together. They should be well shaped and coated with bottom paint...
5) Take a dremel with a cutting wheel and make the flathead screwdriver bolt heads deeper and more usable. Clean up the area around the bolt heads with a wire brush and make sure the paint is "broken" around where it needs to spin.
6) Use a chisel/punch/flathead and a hammer, and dig out the marine tex bondo-like filler from the two spots it's in - see the pics above (the holes are where the filler was). Dig first nearest the stern and move towards the bow to avoid damaging the hardware.
7) Unearth the bolts from the bondo.
This part's a 2-man job. Use a HUGE flathead screwdriver (with a hex shaft - not a round shaft) with an adjustable wrench on the shaft and have someone hold it on the appropriate bolt. Use a wrench to slowly spin the nuts in the rudder holes (not too fast - don't strip the bolt heads!). Once they're moving, you should be able to spin it with your finger. Once the nut is off, slide something (I used a big, crappy adjustable wrench handle) between the end of the bolt and the wood of the rudder and bang the bolt through. If it's not removable with your hand after that, use a big pair of pliers to remove it the rest of the way.
9) The top bolt is the worst; it's got a nasty hook in it and apparently screws right into the rudder with no hardware - I actually think I "caveman'ed" that one off so you're on your own there.
10) Since the prop is still in the way of the rudder shaft, the shaft will stay where it is and simply be re-bolted to the rudder with new hardware once I'm done restoring the rudder.

[carl291]

Are you planning on replacing the prop shaft and maybe the stuffing box also? My luck would be the prop would fall off before I could motor away from the launch site:eek:
  Good Luck

[JurisG]

Current plan of action is to start the motor up and see if it spins clean (indicating that I didn't break or bend anything integral to motor operation). If so, I think I'll drill and tap the end of the prop shaft and run a bolt in with a washer on it, which I will weld to the prop. I'd like to avoid replacing the stuffing and shaft.

[mbd]

I wonder if a Vetus shaft coupler or some sort of spacer would add enough length at the other end of your shaft so you could have your the threads redone and keep your current setup? I'm wishing I had gone this route instead of getting a new shaft ($$$) when the same thing happened to me.

I don't know much bout these things, but I'd be concerned about future maintenance, weakening the tip of the prop shaft further, and the balance of your prop with the welding option.

[bill@ariel231]

"If so, I think I'll drill and tap the end of the prop shaft and run a bolt in with a washer on it, which I will weld to the prop. I'd like to avoid replacing the stuffing and shaft"

hmmm... that actually sounds harder than fitting a new shaft. Demolition is the hard part. For safety's sake you might want to open up the stuffing box and replace the packing AND the section of hose from the box to the shaft tube. Most of the shafts that i have seen with a sheared nut also show some galvanic corrosion. That takes time and may indicate a likelyhood of other problems at the other end of the shaft like a leaking stuffing box. changing the hose and packing is easy and something i do every couple years for the packing and every 5 years or so for the hose.

goodluck
bill@ariel231

[carl291]

Well just a consideration for you, Maybe drill and tap the shaft, run a bronze bolt in, then drill an angled hole through the head of the bolt and the prop and install some .060 safety wire.
 Or drill and tap, install a  "lock tited" threaded stud, then a nut with a carter pin.
  I'm would try  keeping the prop salvageable  for  future use.
  Like Ebb I didn't realize the problem with removing the rudder with an inboard.

[Commander227]

JurisG,
I agree with Bill. Now is the time to go after the stuff box and hose. It will cost all of ten bucks and only take an hour. I also think you should be thinking new shaft.
Try Minnie's Yacht Salvage, I got a used prop in perfect condition for $45.00 and they had some used shafts as well.

[Fox]

Yikes!  I guess I really lucked out removing the prop on 322, a couple taps from a hammer and it came right off.  It took a bit to remove the key from the shaft though, I was pulling the whole shaft, so it had to come out.