Rudder bearing removal

[oil&water]

I've been investigating why my steering was extremely tight and not very responsive. Turns out both rudders only have about 15 degrees of movement. Most likely due to sitting up since the PO put it on land.

I removed the steering knuckle and pushed out the rolled pin from the shaft upper bearing. The bearing is seized to the bearing collar and has sheared off the bolts that held it to the wood support.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to separate? I'm thinking a wheel puller with two small studs sticking out of the bearing on each side (not continuous). Any other ideas?

[prowlersfish]

If you can lock/hold the rudder try twisting it , lots lube . You can try the puller . If all that fails you can cut it or cut and split it

[prowlersfish]

And clean up the upper part of the shaft so it slides off once it breaks loose

[comodave]

Try something like PB Blaster while tapping with a hammer to help it penetrate. If that does not work, try heating (very carefully) and or cooling with dry ice. The expansion and contraction may break it free.

[WayWeGo]

Before I would go any further, like prowlersfish said, I would carefully clean off the rudder shaft so if the bearing moves, it does not trap any rust or grit and causing galling. It might be worthwhile to try an extremely thin penetrating oil like 50/50 acetone/ATF or even go 75/25. Be careful as acetone is almost as flammable as gasoline.

Are you sure the bearing is seized to the collar? It seems much more likely they are both seized to the shaft.

If you have somebody to help you, have them push up on the rudder from underneath the boat and see if it moves up far enough to get a puller on the bearing. It might help to pull the gland nut and remove the shaft packing to free things up. If you can do this, you might be able to pull both at the same time.

You also might be able to get a wedge between the oak and the bearing and displace the oak far enough to get a thin jaw puller under the bearing. Of course, you need to be careful to not damage the oak while doing this, but it should be flexible enough to push it down 1/4" and get a flat puller jaw in there.

Kind of hard to see everything from the pictures, but it might be worth putting a piece of aluminum or brass on top of the shaft and hit it with a drilling hammer. Not so hard you damage the oak board, but enough to impact the joint between the bearing/collar and shaft. If it moves, you might be able to slowly move the bearing up far enough to get a puller on it. Or, if you have them free, you can put a pipe large enough to clear the collar over everything except the bearing and be able to drive the bearing back down far enough to get a puller between the bearing and the collar.

Another option is to find a bearing separator like http://www.harborfreight.com/automotive ... -3979.html. If you go with a cheapie like the HF one, be careful because they are made of pot metal and can fail spectacularly. That should separate the collar and the bearing far enough to get a puller in between.

Have you ever noticed that when things are easy to get to, they never get stuck?

[WayWeGo]

After looking at the photos in your restoration thread, I noticed that the oak board supporting the rudder shaft bearing only goes from stringer to stringer, so it would be easy to replace. Why not unbolt it, cut it in half at the bearing to remove it and put a puller on the bearing?

You are going to have plenty of oak when you rebuild the deck -- just buy a little extra and make a new support...

One tip I learned a long time ago when using a puller, once you have a lot of tension on it, hit the puller bolt with a hammer to break things free. If it is really stuck, the puller is going to fly when it breaks loose!

[oil&water]

Thanks for the ideas. It is hard to see in the picture, but I do have the packing gland nut free.

I'll get some emory cloth and clean up the shaft before proceeding further. There is very little play in the rudder. The top is up next to the rudder tube. Between the oak support and the gland nut is only about one inch. Why the factory made everything so close is beyond me.

[WayWeGo]

With an inch of clearance between the gland nut and the oak support you should be OK, but I would not want to be banging against the hull. Pretty sure you have thought about this, but just wanted to mention in case anyone else with less experience refers to this and has to deal with the same problem.

Good luck and let us know what finally works.

[Big D]

I might be missing something here but I don't believe that is a bearing. Pretty sure top is a stop collar fastened to the shaft. It fixes the height of the rudder and prevents it from dropping through the hull. If that's the case here, don't use a puller or you'll ruin the shaft. There are a few ways these collars are attached; some use set screws into dimples in the shaft, others have slots cut into the sides of the shaft where bolts slide through, while others are 2 piece collars where yoi tighten the two halves against the shaft. If either of the first two, you must remove the bolts or pins before you try to pull the collar. If you can't get the bolts or sets screws out, you'll need to cut the collar.

[mikeandanne]

Lots of good ideas so far, here is another.If you have access to compressed air there is a fitting that turns an air chisel into an air hammer and will vibrate the heck out of that collar ,maybe freeing it up with the help a big pipe wrench twisting collar.....my guess if the ram sheered off the bolts going thru the oak it may be stuck pretty good.

[prowlersfish]

I might be missing something here but I don't believe that is a bearing. Pretty sure top is a stop collar fastened to the shaft. It fixes the height of the rudder and prevents it from dropping through the hull. If that's the case here, don't use a puller or you'll ruin the shaft. There are a few ways these collars are attached; some use set screws into dimples in the shaft, others have slots cut into the sides of the shaft where bolts slide through, while others are 2 piece collars where yoi tighten the two halves against the shaft. If either of the first two, you must remove the bolts or pins before you try to pull the collar. If you can't get the bolts or sets screws out, you'll need to cut the collar.

Reading his post I assume all the bolts/pins have been removed . But it sure will not hurt the recheck the collar to be sure

[WayWeGo]

Especially check the roll pin if it is a spiral wound type rather than a split one. If they have been taking a lot of stress, they can crack and it is possible to drive out the center of the pin but leave the outside layer in the hole. If there is corrosion, it may be hard to see as each layer is quite thin. I suspect this application would have been a split pin, but worth thinking about.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to shoot penetrating oil in the holes for the roll pin and set screw. Just another place to get some in play.

[WayWeGo]

I might be missing something here but I don't believe that is a bearing. Pretty sure top is a stop collar fastened to the shaft.

I believe the top piece is a stop collar that is fastened with a roll pin and a set screw. What looks like a flange is actually a bushing that goes through the oak support with the flange being the only visible part. Probably both are seized on the shaft due to corrosion.

Not an easy nut to crack...

From a post by rossjo (in oilandwater's case, the tiller arm is above the collar, but you can see what the bearing looks like in this drawing):

[oil&water]

Excellent comments and suggestions so far! Very much appreciated. The collar had a roll pin through it. The set screws are not on either rudder. I used a sheared off bolt that just had the smooth shaft left on it to push out the pin. I'm relatively confident that it is all out as the bolt was the same diameter as the collar pin hole. Once I got the pin out, I had to drive the bolt out. (I was beyond relieved it went so smoothly considering an old 2012 post on removal of a similar pin by another Trojan owner that went horribly wrong.)

WayWeGo is correct on the situation I am faced with now. The shaft collar and bearing appears to be seized to the rudder post. I can't imagine the amount of force necessary to shear the two bronze bolts off at the start of their thread.

I'm going to pickup a bearing puller, apply MAPP heat to it, and see where I get with that setup. I'm fairly confident I am going to find some extremely compacted flax packing and all sorts of interesting marine life and salt corrosion inside the rudder tube once I finally get it out.

Then I get to repeat the whole process all over again! Joy, joy.

[WayWeGo]

Fun stuff!

With the MAPP gas torch, you are probably going to damage the oak support. Maybe it would be easier (and less smoky) to remove it first?

Also, to increase the effect of the torch, it might be worth it to have some freeze spray that will shrink the rudder shaft at the same time you heat the bearing and collar. Something like https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-Sup ... eeze+spray