yelbis
regular
Reged: 10/11/2005
Posts: 146
Loc: home counties. sail out of bri...
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In the process of investigating stiff steering, I have taken of the two cable linkages from the quadrant and the propblem is 100% with the rudder, does anyone know if it can be lubricated or if i drop it an inch will the column fill with sea water and result in further problems.
the bearing at the top appears to be nylon and has been lubricated, this i would ideally want to clean up.
thanks
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Tranona
regular
Reged: 10/11/2007
Posts: 1306
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Have a look at where the stock goes into the tube on the outside (obviously easier with the boat out of the water). There is likely to be marine growth on the stock where it goes into the bearing.
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robbieg
regular
Reged: 25/09/2003
Posts: 346
Loc: Portsmouth
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I would suspect it is your lower rudder bearing which has swollen & is binding on the rudder stock. A not uncommon problem if the boat is a few years old. It a question of dropping the rudder & replacing. How easy that is depends on how the bearing is held in place-if its epoxied in it can be interesting but if your lucky you will just have to undo some screws & it will drop out. I would have thought you can get a new one from Bav. or get one made up at a machine shop. Don't use nylon-it swells in water. Search & you should find a thread on the best material to use if you want to get one made up.
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Adamastor
regular
Reged: 08/05/2006
Posts: 162
Loc: Cape Town
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Get a new lower bearing made up with Vesconite Hi-Lube (the white stuff), not acetyl or the like- they're all hygroscopic, and if they haven't been saturated and then machined (difficult, but do-able), then they'll swell.
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For data-transfer rate, nothing beats throwing a computer!
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yelbis
regular
Reged: 10/11/2005
Posts: 146
Loc: home counties. sail out of bri...
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Thanks for the info. Not sure what material Vesconite Hi-Lube is but will enquire when next out in Oct. till then manual steering, still good enough for now. Getting new bearings made with possibly swollen originals poses a problem tho.
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tony_d
regular
Reged: 13/01/2005
Posts: 211
Loc: Sydney
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Our rudder (different model Bav) freed up surprisingly when we flooded the upper bearing with lanolin lubricant. Don't know whether any lubricant made it down to the bottom bearing. Growth wasn't the problem.
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only_me
regular
Reged: 02/09/2007
Posts: 32
Loc: Berkshire
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If you can remove the bearing, ask if your local friendly machine shop can skim the bore on the original, it will take ten minutes to clock up and less than that to drive a boring bar through. Depending on how friendly they are, I guess somewhere between £5.00 to £15.00 for doing it.
If it has swollen you may find that it doesn't want to come out the tube, option two is to wrap some course wet and dry (80 grit) around a drill bit leaving a fairly long tail, insert, turn onto a slow speed and by moving the drill up and down you could remove enough material to cure the problem.
Edited by only_me (04/07/2008 04:28)
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