H31 H34 tie rod chain plate
- Thread starter state2state
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If I am remembering correctly what mine looks like, there is a piece of angle iron that extends between two of the grid "ribs"- the pics are the bit of it that is showing and that the vertical chainplate rods thread into. It is hard to see the rest but worth checking. The visible piece in your pictures doesn't look anymore corroded than mine
I have heard / read of the ss tie rod breaking free from the angle iron often resulting in a demasting. I know that the angle iron / chainplate is glassed in between hull and liner and is not easily accessible. Surveyor didn't seem too concerned. Just curious what others thought.
Yeah exactly that happened to me recently. Not fun. I would suggest looking at options for changing the chain plates and going from there. reading up on this has told me people believe it's easier to get at them from the exterior of the hull... For myself I'm looking at bolting ss through the bulkhead and securing the tierods to that instead.
I agree with Richard.. doesn't look very bad at all to me. I don't see any deformation that would have happened if the angle iron would be thinned significantly. In dealing with structures and pressure vessels, we used a rule of thumb that there is a 4 to 1 ratio of rust to iron loss.. so rust looks really bad mostly but it doesn't consume a lot of iron.. The rust and a little pitting in that picture doesn't look bad enough to be concerned about.. If you really want an answer that you can hang your hat on, you can drill a very small hole thru the plate, say 3/32" diameter (no bigger, and as far away from the tie rod as you can get) .. and then take a small piece of wire with a small 90 degree bend on the tip .... poke this through the hole then hook the bend on the underside of the plate ...and while gently holding up pressure on the wire, mark the straight part of the wire where it exits the top surface.. take the wire out and you can see how thick the metal is by measuring the distance from the bend to the mark. From what I see in the picture, I would do two things.. stop any water leakage (yes, it could be coming through a portlight frame, or the deck, or..) Paint the exposed part with a rust fixer or cold galvanizing..
don't clean that area with any kind of chlorine or bleach based cleaners ..
don't clean that area with any kind of chlorine or bleach based cleaners ..
The Angle Iron itself looks only slightly worse, if not comparable to yours. I should say that the failure wasn't in the Angle Iron, but in the tierod, which sheared at the point where it strews in. So perhaps I'm jumping the gun due to bad experiences... You could instead perform the checks Claude suggested, and also detach and check the tierods. My surveyor pointed out that visually it all looked good but if I wanted to be extra safe I should take them apart. I didn't do that...
My tie rod plate moves back and forth (port to starboard). Its obviously detached from the hull. Deck fitting (shroud attachment)is solid and has no softness or deformation around it. I'm opening it up at tie rod attach point to see if I can glass it back to the bulkhead from the inside. Any sugestions? Maybe bolting the plate