Trojan Boat Forum

Hi all,

I have an F36 that I need to remove the rudders. It appears that if I disconnect the rudder from the rudder arm at the top, lossen the flax nut, the rudder will drop out. Is this true?

Is there some type of bearing at the bottom of this tube to support the stresses on the rudder? Or is it simply a bar inside a tube scenario?

Are their any diagrams that anyone has found about how these work?

Thanks,
Ed

Ed,

Below is a scan of the rudder stuffing box diagram from my 1975 Trojan F-26 Owner's manual. Yours is probably the same, although I guess a larger shaft diameter. One of the difficult parts for me to remove was the roll pin that goes through the shaft & safety collar. I used a drift pin and a hammer to tap it out. It had been there a long time and didn't want to come out easily. My steering was very stiff when I initially bought the boat and it turned out the rudder stuffing box was slightly out of round, making it very difficult to slide out the shaft once the tiller arm and collar were disconnected. I jury rigged a shaft puller and had to work it out gradually.

I had a machinist hone a few thousanths of an inch off the the stuffing box inner diameter which solved the problem, although last spring I pulled out the original rudder and swapped the whole set up for a larger rudder (and larger diameter stuffing box) to get better tracking stability.

I describe the original Trojan F-26 rudder as a ski boat rudder.

One other thing to be aware of. When you drop down the rudder, unless your boat is blocked pretty high up, you might not be able to drop the rudder far enough down to get it out of the stuffing box. Since my boat is in my backyard (on my lawn), I dug a hole about a foot deep in the ground below the rudder which at might not be an option, but sometimes, its easier to lower the ground than to raise the boat.
Good Luck!
Chuck

This rudder setup looks similar to my F32's rudder. Is it indeed the same?