Rudder Shaft Bush

[Miss Kathleen]

Hi All,

Thought I would share some of my trials and tribulations of my rudder shaft bush.

I noticed that there was some play in the shaft, and on closer inspection found that the stainless hose clamp holding the bush in place has caused the bush to jam on the shaft. I guess that at some stage the corrosion of the hose clamp – maybe due to lack of use – caused the seizure. This resulted in an enlarging of the hole in the wooden base. The lesson here is that this bush needs some lubrication.

Amongst the array of fittings are two autopilots (old Raytheon and Raymarine Type 1 drive). The Raymarine lever is a pretty poor fit around the square drive and needs to be sorted.

The old Raytheon is rock solid and one can only admire the workmanship and materials used – bronze!

For the rudder shaft – I plan to fill the gap around the bush with epoxy to stop the movement of the rudder shaft after trying to centralise it as much as possible.

For the autopilot – I plan to re-attach the Raymarine to the gear, after rotating it 180 degrees to get a flat surface for the fitting, and then discard the Raymarine lever.

See photo’s in link.

https://plus.google.com/photos/117161376876600674340/albums/5833608006525516289#photos/117161376876600674340/albums/5862318906250377281

Access to this area was a job in itself as the gas locker had to be removed.

Time permitting I plan to add some support to the stern prior to fitting a windvane.

Cheers

Dennis

[hanks424]

Wow, you have a lot going on around your rudder shaft! An alternative solution for the play is to get a large block (2″ thick) of Delrin (plastic) drill a hole for the rudder shaft, then slice it in two so you can fit it around the rudder shaft. Two horizontal bolts hold the halves together. Then bolt the assembly to the existing wood cross member using four vertical bolts. You now have a monster bearing supporting the shaft. Did this on Shay and it works great.
If you don’t have the clearance you could use a thinner block.

Cheers!
Hank S.
Shay #80 Ketch

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[Miss Kathleen]

Hank,

Great idea, and have just been discussing a similar option. Might look at removing the steering quadrant and dropping a pre-drilled Delrin block over the shaft and bolting to the cross member.

Trying to figure out how to retain the quadrant from the old autopilot as a lever arm for the new autopilot. Reasoning behing this is that the old quadrant is keyed to the rudder shaft and is rock solid. Also, the pivot position is lower (closer to the crossbeam).

Cheers

Dennis

[quent]

Hi Dennis-
Looks like the original A/P was a rotary chain drive setup, with most of the mechanism still there. You might want to consider taking both tiller arms off and replacing with something a little easier to service.
If you need an upper bearing to support the rudder shaft, you can get them in bronze. Here is a link describing both:
http://store.hamiltonmarine.com/browse.cfm/parts/2,697.html
A little spendy, but reliable.
We did an A/P install in our P-424 which was written up in Jan/Feb 2003 in Ocean Navigator magazine and is still available on their website.
Good luck with it!
Quent
S/V Clairebuoyant, #132

[Miss Kathleen]

Hi Quent,

Thanks. Found your article (no photo’s), and was a good read. I also considered adding some extra plate to the existing quadrant but discounted it. Better to have two separate drive attachments (steering quadrant and AP tiller).

Seeing the rudder flanges in the link you provided would be an optimum solution, and something I will consider.

My first concern is to get the bush sorted, and in the short term an additional Delrin block around the shaft, with the original bush beneath will have to suffice until I can get those parts.

Thereafter I will sort the AP. Definitely need to get the tiller located further down the shaft and off the square drive that is reserved (and hopefully never needed) for the emergency tiller.

The original AP is a chain drive, and all the parts are there. It does work – in a fashion, and is very tricky to set. Possibly a good backup, but I am going to fit a Windpilot windvane – my preferred choice of self-steering.

Cheers

Dennis

[quent]

Hi Dennis-
Sorry about the missing pictures. Article is pretty old.
The tiller arm I used was the longer one in the link, It has the 1.5″ bore and is keyed to the rudder shaft. It’s mounted below the steering quadrant about where your old A/P quadrant is mounted.
The old A/P quadrant looks like it was made by Edson, the same company that made most P-424 steering systems. They make good gear and seem to be very helpful. You might want to shoot them an e-mail. They might suggest a solution. My experience however was that they don’t recommend attaching a linear drive to a quadrant.
Likewise, you might also contact Raymarine. Maybe you could figure out a way to get the more modern A/P computer to control the rotary drive and have the best of both systems.
Fair winds,
Quent

[Miss Kathleen]

An update on the rudder shaft bush, and after having spent nearly two days living in the aft lazarette, I am pleased that this job is complete, well almost.

In the earlier link I have included a photo of the new rudder bush. The new bush sits on a bed of epoxy to keep the bush aligned with the shaft. The old rudder bush is located beneath the new block/bush. This has resulted in removing the play in the rudder shaft.

A few shims have sorted the AP tiller arm, and all the slop is gone. The only problem is that due to the position of the Raymarine AP, the AP drive rod is not tangential to the AP tiller. A longer tiller arm will probably sort the problem, and also reduce the driving load of the AP. This is still a WIP.

Cheers

Dennis

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