My rudder post mid-bearing seems to have worked itself loose and popped out of the rudder post tube. I have no idea how this happened but see how this is what is causing the slightly looser steering I noticed last summer. I looked at diagrams and pics of how this is supposed to be assembled, and don't see the 2 1/4-20 1" bolts anywhere that fasten this in place. I do see a lot of caulk that looks like it was holding the bearing in place for a while (i think). Any advice here? Should i just push the rudder post aft to line it up and shove the bearing back down into the tube and then try to secure it with 2 new bolts? I see they sell packing flax, do i need that too? The rudder doesn't really seem to be shifting around much and funny enough, i used it this way for at least 1 season last year.
Rudder post bearing is loose?
- Thread starter CowboyWay
- Start date
A few Ideas come to mind:
- The first and easiest would be to glue the bearing back into the tube. It looks like there wasn't any adhesive on the tube part of the bearing so this would likely work well if done properly. The more surface area it can adhere to, the higher the success rate. I suspect that many adhesives dont work well with slick plastics. Thixo or Six10 is worth looking into
- Fiberglass a theaded insert to the tube and secure the bearing with a setscrew
- Make a flange with fiberglass so those long 1/4" screws in your pic have something to secure themselves to
Looking at the photos for both boats, it appears there may be a set screw(s) to hold the bearing in place. Clean up the caulk to see if that is correct and replace the set screws. On @john2 there appears to be 4 set screws, 2 of which are visible. Setting the bearing back in place with some 4200 might help, however, there isn't much surface on the top of the rudder tube for the 4200 to adhere.
Based on the drawing from the Catalina site, that is what I would do. if you don't find the holes for the two bolts mentioned in the drawing you might consider drilling and tapping if you can do it without having the drilled out material fouling anything lower in the tube.
Rudder Bearing, C-309, C-310, C-315, C-350, C-355, C-375, C-380, C-385, C-387, C-400, C-42, C-445
As far as the packing I'd probably get the gland secured in the tube first and then see how it works. You might get away without having to repack the gland.