Hi,
So, I'm having a bear of a time removing the keel lock bolt. There is no way it should be this difficult, so I'm thinking that either there is some secret I am missing or I just need more brute force. Here's the back story:
I just bought the boat a few months ago. The keel was rebuilt last fall and installed by a good boatyard. All bolts are in great shape - no rust/corrosion, no apparent bends or stripped threads. Gaskets are intact with no leaking, and the keel itself looks good. Since it was rebuilt, the previous owner had never lowered the keel, so the lock bolt was in place with the keel in the up position.
No problem. I lowered the keel and have sailed it without locking the keel. Sailing around the bay and such I haven't worried about this too much, but it is time to lock the keel down.
So, we pulled the little white plastic plug off and threw a 3/4" socket on the bolt head. The bolt turned with no problem. Quickly realized that there is a nut on the backside (up at an awkward angle through the battery compartment). No problem. Put a wrench back there and was able to turn the nut about once around before the resistance exceed the tools and muscle available.
After much cursing, I finally began to wonder if the bolt, for some reason, was reverse-threaded. I couldn't see/feel the end of the bolt well enough to confirm or deny. So, we turn it back - again about one full turn before it became too hard to turn.
We worked on this for 2 hours when the voice of reason (the wife) spoke up and suggested we move on to another project and ask around to see if there is something we are missing.
I'm at a bit of a loss. We put a LOT of torque on that bolt - to the point where I was sure I would twist it off. The nut and bolt themselves don't look remarkable in any way - just a 3/4" hex head. The nut is not even a locking nut. There is a locking washer on between the nut and the rubber gasket, but that would be one heck of a locking washer if that was the problem.
Any ideas? The bolt turns freely. I can almost turn it with my fingers. It's just that it turns with the nut. It kind of feels like the bolt is severely bent, but the nut is just 1/2" from the end of the bolt, and can't really be bent enough to resist the torque we put on it. My next try will be to borrow and impact wrench and see what I can do. I'm really close to just cutting the bolt off.
So, I'm having a bear of a time removing the keel lock bolt. There is no way it should be this difficult, so I'm thinking that either there is some secret I am missing or I just need more brute force. Here's the back story:
I just bought the boat a few months ago. The keel was rebuilt last fall and installed by a good boatyard. All bolts are in great shape - no rust/corrosion, no apparent bends or stripped threads. Gaskets are intact with no leaking, and the keel itself looks good. Since it was rebuilt, the previous owner had never lowered the keel, so the lock bolt was in place with the keel in the up position.
No problem. I lowered the keel and have sailed it without locking the keel. Sailing around the bay and such I haven't worried about this too much, but it is time to lock the keel down.
So, we pulled the little white plastic plug off and threw a 3/4" socket on the bolt head. The bolt turned with no problem. Quickly realized that there is a nut on the backside (up at an awkward angle through the battery compartment). No problem. Put a wrench back there and was able to turn the nut about once around before the resistance exceed the tools and muscle available.
After much cursing, I finally began to wonder if the bolt, for some reason, was reverse-threaded. I couldn't see/feel the end of the bolt well enough to confirm or deny. So, we turn it back - again about one full turn before it became too hard to turn.
We worked on this for 2 hours when the voice of reason (the wife) spoke up and suggested we move on to another project and ask around to see if there is something we are missing.
I'm at a bit of a loss. We put a LOT of torque on that bolt - to the point where I was sure I would twist it off. The nut and bolt themselves don't look remarkable in any way - just a 3/4" hex head. The nut is not even a locking nut. There is a locking washer on between the nut and the rubber gasket, but that would be one heck of a locking washer if that was the problem.
Any ideas? The bolt turns freely. I can almost turn it with my fingers. It's just that it turns with the nut. It kind of feels like the bolt is severely bent, but the nut is just 1/2" from the end of the bolt, and can't really be bent enough to resist the torque we put on it. My next try will be to borrow and impact wrench and see what I can do. I'm really close to just cutting the bolt off.
