H33 Cutless bearing removal

[Mark Mowery]

Just in case anyone is interested, I came up with a tool that allowed me to remove and replace the cutless bearing on my H33 without removing the rudder and prop shaft. See the drawings and instructions here:http://www.qsl.net/aa8tc/cutless.htmThe worst part of the whole job was getting the prop off. The bearing replacement itself only took about a half hour or so.Hope someone has a use for the tool.Mark Mowery"Gazelle"Lake Huron

 

[Claude L.-Auger]

Bearing removal tool

Great idea Mark. Question comes to mind: since the prop is already out of the way, could one install the plates to push the bearing out instead of in ?Of course that would depend on space between shaft and hull. If so, you would only need to pull the bearing out instead of cutting it. Either way, I think this is great idea and am certainly going to look for a machine shop. Any idea as to overall cost ? Thanks

 

[Kevin l. Woody]

To simple!

Hello Mark,You did not make it hard or complicated enoungh. Let me get it to me engineers. Thanks for the advice.Sincerely Kevin.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Thanks Mark, excellent!

(nm)

 

[Mark Mowery]

Using tool in reverse

In response to Claude, who asked why the bearing couldn't be pushed right off the end of the shaft:The main reason I didn't try this is because there isn't a way to get the "pusher" on the prop shaft between the strut and the hull where the shaft exits. I had thought about splitting the pusher down the middle lengthwise, placing both halves around the shaft between the strut and hull, and holding them back together with hose clamps until the pusher is well started into the strut. But I really wasn't sure how much force would be needed to push the bearing out, so decided to leave the pusher intact. Now that I've done it once, I think the hose clamps would be plenty strong enough, and if you chose to do that, you could indeed push the old bearing right off the shaft. But, the bronze outer shell of the old bearing is pretty thin, and it only took a minute or so to cut it off.

 

[Mark Mowery]

Cost of tool

Sorry, forgot to answer Claude's other question.If you hire a machine shop to do this for you, they'll quote you a price based on "time + materials".Total time to build this tool, including cutting and drilling the plates, and lathe work to make the pusher, done to your supplied dimensions, should not be more than about 2 hours. I think it took me just a bit over an hour. If they make the pusher from solid round stock rather than black pipe like I did, it will take a little longer. Material costs should be fairly minimal, most machine shops should have some suitable scraps of material around to make the tool from. Threaded rod, nuts, washers from Home Depot cost $5 or so. So I guess you can use this to determine whether any price you're quoted is fair or not.