Marinette Boat Forum

If your boat is anything like my 72, then there was almost no access to any of that. When I pulled my deck last year, I went through the same thing. Rusted and broken parts. My rudders were seized into the packing glands so bad, I had to cut them off above the blade and drive the rudder stock and gland up through the hull with a bottle jack. Of coarse I made new SS rudders. While the floor was out I had to do everything I could. We must all be gluttons for punishment.

I did the same on mine last winter, while in dry dock. Also did the stainless steel rudders as well. A great guy in Dayton Ohio has a machine shop that did my rudders for $300.00. And yes, with the deck in place, it's physically painful !! Mine is a 3 line Hynautics. Put in the new rudders, with new stuffing boxes and Cutlass bearings/bushings (procedures which were learned from posts on this site ! ), sandblasted all the linkage, repainted and coated all the joints with Anti-seize. Had to re-build the leaking cylinder as well. Mine being a 1975, Hynautics, now owned by SeaStar ( I think), no longer has a cylinder to replace it with, so I was forced to re-build it, as the original o-rings were wasted. Went to a local cylinder supplier in Twinsburg Ohio and replaced all the regular o-rings with the newer X style "Quad-rings". The quadrings seal much better, as they don't "roll" in their recess, like an o-ring, which is much preferred in a cylinder environment. With the "new" cylinder I also had to replace the bearing that mounts the cylinder at the fixed end, which was easily accessed from a supplier found online. Fresh fluid, followed the proper Hynautics bleeding procedure for my application ( the manual for which I also found online), and now I can steer it with one finger. As one can see from some of the previous posts on here, a rotted set of rudders can cause a great deal of headaches, as this part of out M's doesn't get any attention until she quits steering, or the rudders leak ( as was the case with mine). Mine leaked so bad, the bilge pump ran every half hour. Now repaired, my bilge is also DRY !! As a side note, she almost sank the first year of ownership, as the over-taxed bilge pump quit working. Luckily I caught & fixed THAT before water reached the oil pans ! Yes, it was difficult and painful on my 50 year old body to do the work, but doing it myself, I saved hundreds, if not thousands in repair work, and don't forget the peace of mind. If anyone needs the parts list, as well as part numbers I used, just ask.

I ran into a unique problem on my steering linkage (other than the rudders) that frustrated me for a while. Because my boat has cable steering, the cable where it connected to the stbd rudder ran fore and aft. This meant that this rudder had a bell crank on it, or L shaped tiller, that had broken between the two arms due to the seized rudder stocks. It had a very cobbled repair done years ago that I was not putting back in. I could not find a replacement anywhere. Luckily the break was clean. I blasted it, machined the top of both arms for a brace, and had it TIG welded. Worked perfectly.

I was able to make rudders using my old prop shafts and some .250" SS plate. Turned out awesome. In the bottom right corner of the picture you can see the broken bell crank before repair.

Regarding rudder linkage, what should it be lubed with - if at all?

That is good anti seize compound. I use it on my Buick motor bolts.

Beautifull Nice job better than new

[img][/img]Sorry guys - sure this is covered somewhere on the site, but what are you replacing these with?