Marinette Boat Forum

Question, To tighten my rudder packing do I need to take the linkage off the top of shaft to get to the cotter
key?

Thanks, Wayne

On my 1974 32' and my 1975 37' I had to remove the linkage to get access to the plastic rudder packing retainer glands cotter pins.

That said, especially if you are in the water

Once you remove the linkage make sure you have a way of holding onto the rudder, other wise it will torpedo to the bottom of the lake faster than you can say "Oh SH&%

bill

Seeing it's not the prop shaft, you can tighten the heck out of that packing to stop it from leaking.

Jeff

On my 28 ft, I had a pencil sized stream of water coming in that I could not slow down by tightening. I did not have remove linkage at first, but after trying to get them tight, I had to remove to whole rudder. The steel shafts were pitted bad, not allowing the packing to seal. I wire wheeled the shafts, cleaned off as much residue as I could, then I covered the pitted area with JB Weld. After it hardened, I sanded them smooth. I reinstalled rudders, installed new non metallic cutless bearings, and new packing material. No more leak. Also, there was quite a bit of slop in the rudder cutless bearings that was causing a vibration at cruising speed, which was eliminated after changing out the bearings. My packings also had 3 or 4 screws going into the plastic packing gland jam nut, make sure you back them out all the way before trying to tighten or loosen, otherwise the threads on the gland will get damaged.

Rodney, a bit of a sidebar question: what method did you follow for replacing the cutless bearings? I might just be crazy but I seem to remember a post in the old forum where someone used a regular 4-inch nonmetallic bearing, cut it in half, and put half at the bottom of the rudder shaft and half at the top.

That's the only way to buy them.

Jeff

Maestro, I did use the 4" ones, and like Jeff said, that is the only way to buy them. I did not cut them in half, the old ones I took out were in one piece. I did clean up the bore on the welded stubs that the bearing goes into, and pounded them in from the bottom. After reviewing the Marinette website, and seeing that you should cut them in half, I probably would have if I had read that first.

Thanks guys.

TinLizzy wrote:Maestro, I did use the 4" ones, and like Jeff said, that is the only way to buy them. I did not cut them in half, the old ones I took out were in one piece. I did clean up the bore on the welded stubs that the bearing goes into, and pounded them in from the bottom. After reviewing the Marinette website, and seeing that you should cut them in half, I probably would have if I had read that first.

I had the same issue with rudder vibration. It was caused by the improper installation of the rudder bearings. You must install a 2" bearing in the top of the shaft log and a 2" bearing in the bottom of the shaft log. Installing the 4" bearing in one end of the shaft log will cause an uneven distribution of pressure on one end of the shaft causing the rudder to pivot on an angle in the bore.

You'll replace improperly installed bearing in a few seasons.

Eric

I'm definitely going to try replacing those before the boat hits the water this spring. Last year we had vibration at higher speeds which was more noticeable the closer you stood to the back of the boat.

I suspect its not the sole reason for the vibration but Im thinking those rudder bearings are probably shot.