This is just an informational posting for you P42 owners. I have a 1991 model Passage 42 (hull 65) on which I just replaced the lower rudder bearing. The boat had 50,000 miles on it, and the lower bearing had so much play that it was quite noisy as the rudder shaft moved from side to side of the bearing when going downwind or surfing. It turned out that it had about 2 mm of play. But the biggest surprise was that the bearing had come loose in the rudder shaft housing and was rotating with the rudder shaft in the housing, rather than remaining stationery with the shaft turning inside it.
Removing the rudder took a day of digging a hole deep enough in the boatyard tarmac (the rudder bottom was 36” above the tarmac, and the hole was just deep enough at 49”). After dropping the rudder we chiseled out the remaining bearing. The drawings Hunter provided were useless, as they indicated a 6 inch shaft, and our 1991 model has a 3.5 inch shaft. (Hunter doesn’t possess the older drawings). We had a bearing custom made by a machinist/engineer at the boatyard in Opua, New Zealand. It turned out that the shaft housing was not perfectly round inside, so the bearing had to be shaved and custom fit into the housing. The old bearing only had horizontal parallel lines on the outside of it, which permitted it to rotate along with the rudder shaft. The replacement has vertical lines as well, and the epoxy fill went into both the horizontal and vertical fills.
We used the same UHMW material as the upper bearing (which was still tight), and all went well. The lower bearing had to be cut out from under the hull, but the cutout was small, and easily fixed with a laminate collar which was then glassed into the hull, and then feathered along the perimeter of it to make it all smooth. The bearing cost $730 NZD (about $560 USD—the same price quoted to me by a US manufacturer), and took the machinist about 7 hours to manufacture and fit.
We took the opportunity to dye the rudder shaft to check for cracks and imperfections on it, and all was well. There were, as usual, small stress cracks around the rudder shaft base where it is supported by the hull cross-members. I had a boatbuilder inspect it, and he pronounced it cosmetic only, and gave the entire repair a “thumbs up.”
The rudder is now tight and all is well.
Removing the rudder took a day of digging a hole deep enough in the boatyard tarmac (the rudder bottom was 36” above the tarmac, and the hole was just deep enough at 49”). After dropping the rudder we chiseled out the remaining bearing. The drawings Hunter provided were useless, as they indicated a 6 inch shaft, and our 1991 model has a 3.5 inch shaft. (Hunter doesn’t possess the older drawings). We had a bearing custom made by a machinist/engineer at the boatyard in Opua, New Zealand. It turned out that the shaft housing was not perfectly round inside, so the bearing had to be shaved and custom fit into the housing. The old bearing only had horizontal parallel lines on the outside of it, which permitted it to rotate along with the rudder shaft. The replacement has vertical lines as well, and the epoxy fill went into both the horizontal and vertical fills.
We used the same UHMW material as the upper bearing (which was still tight), and all went well. The lower bearing had to be cut out from under the hull, but the cutout was small, and easily fixed with a laminate collar which was then glassed into the hull, and then feathered along the perimeter of it to make it all smooth. The bearing cost $730 NZD (about $560 USD—the same price quoted to me by a US manufacturer), and took the machinist about 7 hours to manufacture and fit.
We took the opportunity to dye the rudder shaft to check for cracks and imperfections on it, and all was well. There were, as usual, small stress cracks around the rudder shaft base where it is supported by the hull cross-members. I had a boatbuilder inspect it, and he pronounced it cosmetic only, and gave the entire repair a “thumbs up.”
The rudder is now tight and all is well.
