Rudder Bushing Over Haul

                                    

                                                              Rudder Bushing

During the scraping of the bottom I did found some silicone around the nut of the starboard rudder bushing. I did not pay much attention to it until later this year when we started to paint the inside of the boat under the water line.

What I noticed was that the bushing from the inside looked a bit loose and further investigation from the outside showed that there was quite an amount of silicone placed around the nut, more or less covering the nut, could be to protect the vessel from water ingress.

Could not find any information on the internet about this rudder bushing how it was installed or fitted into the hull.

So I started to dismount the area. First thing to do is to remove the arms from the actual rudder stock.

Next step is to remove any damage scratches from the rudder stock to prevent when the rudder is pulled through the rudder bushing that scratches can occur on the bronze bushing which can create friction when the rudder is placed back.
Also the compression nut for the packing is loosened.
The rudder is then removed.




















To be able to remove the bushing with gasket one needs to remove the plank above the rudder bushing.

When the support plank is removed the compression nut for the gasket after which the two lock nuts can be removed to be able to push the rudder bushing outboard.

In my case when I start to remove the compression nut for the gasket the complete rudder bushing started to turn resulting that I was able to pull the bushing inside.

Next step was to clean all thread bushing inside the compression nut removing the gasket. Checking the hull of the ship for wood rot and to my amazement the hull was sound no rot could be detected, hull inside was cleaned as well.

Inside the compression nut is the gasket which was removed to be changed for a new one, this is pretty easy when all is removed compared to when the complete construction is in the boat.

As can be seen from the next picture the gasket material was not properly inserted, one should not make one long gasket like a spiral but one should make individual gaskets for each turn this to make it able to compress the gasket better.

  

When all was cleaned and de-greased with acetone the bushing was placed back into the hull.

To prevent that when the locking nuts were tightened inside that the complete bushing would turn again, like when the bushing was removed the outer nut was installed with thread lock.

Next step was to install the bushing in place and to seal it against the hull, for this I used seal and glue, as from the picture can be seen I used an excessive amount to make sure that I would have a guaranteed 100 % sealing between the rudder bushing and the ships hull.  Excessive amount of sealant glue was removed shortly after the installation.

Nuts were tightened on the inside, rudder installed and new packing placed.

The easiest way to cut packing on the right length is to pull the packing around the rudder stock make a small cut as reference point then remove the packing and cut under a 45° angle on both side the packing to the correct length. Insert after the rudder is in place with the 45° cuts on top of each other. This way when the compression nut is tightened each individual packing will be compressed. When the packing is installed the wooden support can be installed as well.

Below pictures are from the propeller shaft packing but the principle is the same.

Teak Deck Installation Part II

                                                      
                                                      Teak Deck Installation Part II

                                                  
                                              

Due to my day to day work, need the money to finish the boat, I have not been able to spent too much time the last 12 months on continuing with the repairs, the same is expected for the next year. I have been working on the boat but most of the repairs were repeat repairs of earlier described work onto the boat.

Although it looks like a long time that I took to have the caulking cure of the teak deck this was intentional.  Idea was to finish the outside roof of the main cabin first before continuing with the deck. Will describe the roof of the main cabin painting in another blog.

We continued where we left the teak deck after calking between the planks.

The first thing to do was to course sand the teak deck, grade 40, to get all the excess of caulking of the deck, when this was done the deck looked great, from a distance.

A closer look showed that there were area’s in the calking which showed smaller and some larger holes. One can leave these smaller holes in place but as I have seen, even under a tiny hole in the caulking a large hole can be present. Reason for these holes can be to quickly filling the groove between the planks with caulking, not taking enough time to fill the groove completely, working slowly and diligent.  Or when one starts with a new tube of caulking and forgets to let the air out.

How to solve the issue of the holes, one need good tools: sharp knife and I used a chisel slightly smaller than the groove. One then carefully cuts the caulking out of the groove where the holes are. I cut all the caulking out till I reached the wood to make sure that no holes in the caulking would be present. Also cleaned the sides from caulking.

Next step is to place masking tape on the sides of the groove we do not want to get to much caulking onto the sanded teak deck again.

Clean the groove make sure all the dirt and loose rubber and wood are vacuumed out completely, prepare the groove with Sikaflex primer, Sikaflex is the system I used but as mentioned in my earlier blog there are other suitable caulking’s for teak decks. Most important is to follow the manufacturers instructions and do not make short cuts.

The following step is to fill the groove with caulking and use a putty knife to make sure that the groove is full and that the caulking is not sticking to high above the deck.

Reason for not having too much caulking sticking out above the deck is that sanding will be more difficult as well as that when there is too much caulking onto the tape that the tape cannot be removed before the sanding is started.

With a little thin layer of caulking onto the tape, the tape can be removed after the caulking has dried. If the tape cannot be removed one needs to sand it off, which will make the teak deck dirty with glue from the tape

What is left then is sanding of the area’s where new caulking has been filled into the groves between the planks. As can be seen from below picture there is no difference between older caulking and new caulking .