Gudgeon/rudderhead questions.......

[Shawn]

Were bronze bushings in the gudgeon and rudderhead standard on a '92 23/3?

The SS pin basically welded itself to the lower bronze bushing in the rudder head. There was a ton of friction in there trying to turn the rudder and I couldn't get the pin out for anything. Even with many hits with a sledge it has barely moved. I finally got the rudder head off the gudgeon (cutting the pin) but the pin is still locked into the rudder head.

The gudgeon itself had the paint come off in numerous places and is looking pretty chalky so I will likely replace it with a new one from Compac.

I'm going with the Ida Sailor rudderhead/foiled rudder. In talking with Joel he has said he could install delrin bushings in the gudgeon. Those should be nice to avoid galvanic corrosion in the hinge.

Anyone replace the gudgeon on a 23? Any tips/tricks to getting the old one off? Looks like it will be a PITA to get the nuts off the back of the bolts holding the gudgeon on.

Thanks,

Shawn

[mrb]

Hello Shawn

Can't say I've changed gudgeon on any boat, however I would suggest getting the best pennetrating oil or tap free (maybe at auto supply) and soak those pins for a day or two.  I would be careful with a hammer as you could put stress fractures in transom.  Crawl into space and soak those nuts also.

Not being sure of what type gudgeons and pintles you have I shouldn't offer any more advice other than saying if you go to    www.rigrite.com then go to hardware/rudder and look for pintles and gudgeons you could tell which type you have.

The problem is that sometimes the pin is attached to the pintles and in other cases it is attached to the gudgeon.

I'm afraid if you can not drive the pin out of the part hooked to the rudder stock it may be of the type where pin is in pintle and it was not suppost to come out.

Good luck hope this helps a little and let me know what you find out.
Melvin

[Shawn]

"I'm afraid if you can not drive the pin out of the part hooked to the rudder stock it may be of the type where pin is in pintle and it was not suppost to come out."

Not on the 23 anyway. It is basically just one long SS rod with threads on both ends that is threaded between the top/bottom of the rudderhead and gudgeon and held in place with nuts at both ends. After I cut the rod it slipped right through the top rudder/gudgeon mount but was still locked in tight on the bottom. I was finally able to work the pin through the bottom gudgeon but it isn't coming out of the rudderhead. The combination of stainless steel, bronze and aluminum in salt water isn't a good combination.

Thanks for the tip on rigright. The factory gudgeon is a casting but some of their replacement units look interesting.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Craig Weis]

Shawn, good morning I am not 100% sure so I'm going to assume dumb questions about the Com-Pac 23.

1~The rudder is hung off the transom by an aluminum casting bolted on the transom with [4] 1/4-20 ss bolts, washers, and nyloc nuts. Same as my CP-19. Basically the same set-up.

If you wish...This casting can easily removed by using 4 small vice grips on the nuts inside the transom. [clamp them on and let them hang]  I didn't have to climb under the deck to reach the nuts on transom so many times by clamping onto 4 nuts at once.. Turning the bolts out on the outside of the transom you'll hear each nut drop off with the weight of the mini vice grip. Note that these bolts go through plywood re-inforcements glassed into the transom.

HINT: A little heat from a paint stripping gun or wife's hair dryer to about 160 deg F, that's almost too hot to touch, beat the casting with a  rubber hammer from all directions and she'll fall off the transom into your hands. Each hole will have a dollop of 3M-5200 slow-set to seal the bolt holes and one can peel off the 3M-5200 when warmed.

2~She's a little tight in rotation? The assembly is held together top and bottom by one long ss threaded rod! That's your problem me thinks. It's not factory. Separated ss bolts and washers and nut. [Nuts up!] so you look~see if they are unthreading.
Here in lies the problem. Maybe. I'm afraid the the ss threaded rod was added by a previous skipper. It is not factory IMHO. Tighten it up too much and and the casting is stressed, or may be factory drilled the holes in the casting off center and now things are binding.

3~No one sees these but the factory inserted plastic bushings into the casting holes.
I found these when I drilled my transom casting and rudder holes out with my cordless 1/2 drill and new sharp bit.
Spun the plastic inserts right up onto the drill bit.

4~Go to Ace Hardware and pick up [4] 1/2 dia. shoulder bronze bushings x 3/4 inch long.  Bronze bushings do not need to run the full length of each drilled hole so 3/4" is long enough. Buy two [3-1/2"?]  ss bolts to go in the bushings with enough length to have a couple of threads sticking out above the nyloc nuts and washers. Pick-up [8] ss FLAT washers for the two bolts and two nyloc nuts. I could not find ss nyloc nut, but you might try 'chromed' nut.  This will set you back about $14 less drill bit.

5~Once the casting and rudderhead  holes have been drilled to accept the bronze bushings, put two bushings in the casting on the transom and two bushings in rudder head casting. The bronze bushing will sit shoulder to shoulder at the top bolt and at the bottom bolt assembly. To 'push' the bushings into the drilled holes I slipped a washer onto a bolt and used the washer/bolt surface to tap the bushings home with a light hammering action. Use a ton on NEVERSEAZE greese on everthing that moves.

LOOK at Skip's Pictures in the Frappr link provided at the bottom of my posts. Other other link is for United States Power and Sail Squadron. skip.

[Shawn]

" Tighten it up too much and and the casting is stressed, or may be factory drilled the holes in the casting off center and now things are binding."

It is corrosion in the pin. Even with it completely off the boat I can't get the pin out of the lower bronze bushing in the rudder head. It was frozen solid which is why I had so my friction in the rudder.

Thanks for the tips on getting the gudgeon out.

Shawn

[Craig Weis]

The casting is off great, don't bang hard on it...she may crack!

A lower bronze bushing in the lower rudderhead cast assembly?

Bronze bushing on small Com-Pac's are not factory.
Is it a shoulder bushing? or straight bushing? Probably straight.
Maybe the factory switched from Bronze to plastic/nylon/UHMW or some darn thing because of this. Is this an early boat?

OK, one SS rod threaded at each end a little bit to accommodate the castings. Sound like a homemade job. You cut the rod into two pieces. One piece is out.
So do you have enough SS rod shank sticking out to snap on a vice grip? And a 4 foot cheater bar to go over the vice grip?

You do have a tiller, not a wheel right?

Anyway your tougher then it is you can get her out.  I deal with old Ford Model "A" s and 80 year old head studs are no match for me. Here's what you do...

Heat her up with a little Ace Hardware butane torch and use plenty of B.P. Blaster penetrating oil and let her soak a lot.
Heat and beat. Heat and twist. Maybe you can make a press and use a screw [or threaded rod] to push on the bushing. Might need to chase it with a smaller dia spacer when pressing. Do you have a 'real' hefty vice on a good work bench?
A little pressure applied over night with some 'Blaster' might pop her loose by morning.

One time I clamped up a pump housing and impeller shaft in the bench vice and snapped on a vice grip to a shaft, put on the 4 foot cheater bar and hung on 30 lb weight [ something like 120 ftlb] with some 18 ga electric wire. Then I heated the shaft red hot and shot B.P. Blaster on and more as she cooled got her red hot again and went to bed. In the morning the shaft had turned and I just worried her back and forth with the bar.  Heck you only dealing with salt and corrosion here. skip.
You don't have a vice? Put the assembly on the driveway with a 2 x 4 on it and park the car on the other end of the 2 x 4 to hold her down. What ever it takes.

Took me a week to break loose 20 lug nuts on my 1957 CJ-5 Jeep. I hung my bulbous body from a 6 foot stick of sch 80 black iron pipe over a tee wrench with the business end on the nut, and a jack stand on the floppy end of the tee and the pipe horizontal.  I bent everything but I got them all loose and did not break one. Heat!!   

[Shawn]

I haven't tried to take the Gudgeon off yet. That is a later project.

There are bronze bushings in the gudgeon (top and bottom) and well as in the rudder head (top and bottom). They are flanged sleeve bushings.

Not an early boat a '92 23/3.

"OK, one SS rod threaded at each end a little bit to accommodate the castings."

The threads were just on the outside of the casting so it could be fastened in place with washer/nuts. There is still some rod sticking out of the rudder head so I should be able to grab it with vice grip and will go after it with a lot of heat.

Honestly I'm not really worried about the rudder head at this point since I'm going with the Ida Sailor setup. For that I really just need to get the gudgeon removed and get a replacement for it probably with delrin bushings installed to avoid future corrosion problems.

Shawn

[Craig Weis]

You know, this just hit me.
Clean up the ss rod shank that is at the opposite
end of the rod. Then washer up on the threads and put the nut on.
A few turns pushing against the washers with the bottom of the nut
and the rod may move. If it does more washer [spacers] and do the
tighten but again. Keep going till she pulls out. skip.

[Shawn]

Skip,

That is a good idea. Unfortunately I had to cut off the threaded section when I was getting it through the gudgeon. It had bent slightly with the persuasion from the BFH which was preventing if from passing through.

Shawn

[mrb]

ouch.

Can you get a drill close enough to drill into the pin.  If can try an easy out. Stainless can be difficult to drill but if you can fined tap free to use on bit when drilling helps.  Also want to keep speed (rpm) down. 

The easy out may make it possible to turn pin while using penetrating oil or heat.  Be careful with the aluminum casting of rudder head. Cast Aluminum does break and I think you will need that head to hang your Ida rudder from.  At least that is the way mine works.  Old head new rudder foil.

[Shawn]

"Cast Aluminum does break and I think you will need that head to hang your Ida rudder from.  At least that is the way mine works.  Old head new rudder foil."

For the 23 Ida Sailor doesn't just sell the rudder blade, you have to buy the whole works which is a new blade and rudder head. That is why I am more concerned with the gudgeon right now.

Shawn

[kchunk]

While the whole rudder assembly looks pretty slick, I'm pretty sure you can just buy the blade...at least you used to. Try calling them.

--Greg

[Shawn]

Nope, they no longer just sell the blade for the 23.

Shawn

[nick23]

I actually asked about this to Joel at Idasailor in late January...here is his reply:

Currently, we only have the CP19 blades left in stock, as we stopped producing the foiled rudders for the Com-Pac boats last year.
That being said, we are working right now to produce another, lower-cost foiled rudder for the CP16, 19 and 23 boats to replace our discontinued rudder models.
Even though the foiled rudders we built for the CP boats were very popular and a great performance enhancement,  we discontinued the foiled rudders because the cost of producing them in a high quality, with lifetime warranty was too high to make them attractive to most owners, especially when compared to our new Unifoil C kick up rudder assembly.
The Unifoil C kick up rudder offers many features and benefits that the foiled blade cannot offer, but we're finding the market for a foiled lower blade replacement still exists.
Our goal is to produce the high performance foiled lower replacement blades for the cp16, 19 and 23 in the next 60 days, with an emphasis on keeping the price as low as feasible, our price target is $288 for the cp16 rudder, slightly more for the large model boats.
We are on our fourth generation prototype of the new foiled rudder at this stage and hope to have finished parts available soon.
Please check our website frequently as we will have the parts available on our online store as soon as they are finished, we will also announce this to the Com-Pac owners forums at that time.
Thanks for your interest in our high performance parts, let me know if you have any questions.
Fair winds,
-Joel

[Craig Weis]

Holy Crud!! I think they are pricing themselves clean out of the market. A chunk of plastic and a CNC machine fire it up and come back in an hour or so, saw cut a aluminum rudder head, drill a pivot hole, bolt the head on to the rudder and UPS it out the door. Who needs all the rest of the stuff offered. KISS!. skip
Anyone want to go into business making foiled rudders? There is a ton of open machine time in this Obama world..