Hi
Has anyone had any issues with a cluncky metallic sound(?) from the steering in a wave sea. As you go over the waves get a bang/ knock. Off the French coast and sea general big

Barry Tiernan
Sulito

Hi Barry

I've had a clunking rudder from day one. In my case it's the pintle bolts widening the holes in the gudgeons. I have tried new bolts, lots of washers, all to no avail. Wiser owners than me have advised reaming out the holes to an imperial size up (I think from memory M12 to 1/2") but I am too scared to lose metal from the gudgeons. Mind you, if I leave it any longer they will ream themselves.

Could that be it?
Peter

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Hi Peter

Thanks for that. I can see the movement in the rudder stock and agree with you that making the holes bigger for shims is not sensible
I will wait until the boat is out on the winter to assess fully
On the North Coast of France at the moment and the big rooley seas make the banging worse, keep waiting for something to break? I have checked the rods and greased them, they seem fine

Regards
Barry

Hi Barry

There are three things I know of that go clunk in the 325/335 steering arrangements.
1 Loose rudder pivot bolt ( ours nearly fell out off the Channel Islands)
2 Wear in the rudder fittings, which was much improved by replacing 12mm bolts with 1/2" and I can't believe this involves any loss of strength.
3 There is some play in the steering mechanism itself on wheel steered boats. This would be really tricky to get rid of and probably not worth the effort.
I guess the important thing is that though the clonking is a pest it probably doesn't imply anything important amiss.

Martin
335/50

Hi Martin,

P335 #045 Surprise also has the infamous clunk. This Spring I measured all parts of the rudder stock and the gudgeons. The hole in the gudgeons are worn out. The holes through the rudder stock are still perfectly round with 12,2mm.
What I am going to do is to ream the 4 holes in gudeons to 14mm. Then I will have 4 inserts (with a collar) made (inox or brass) that fit the 4 holes (2 per gudeon) and have an internal bore diameter to fit the existing 12mm bolts. This way I don’t have to drill in the rudder stock.

I discussed the problem with several mechanical engeneers. The main problem is that the bolt are allowed to pivot where in fact these should be fixed and the rudder stock should be pivoting around the bolt.

I plan to fix it by adding a 6-8mm stainless steel plate on top and below each fitting. There will be some small strips welded on top to prevent the bolts from pivoting.
The added plates will either be bolted or welded to the gudgeons.

That is the plan. I come back when it is done.

You could what Westerly did on their transom hung rudders, and increase the gudgeon hole size by 4mm and then fit Delrin 'top hat' bushes which you can replace as and when they wear.The year before last, I made up two sets (8 pcs) for a Westerly Konsort owner who is a member of DQSC, as his bushes were getting worn, only needed a 200mm length of 20~25mm Delrin rod offcut from Ensinger Plastics in Waterlooville, and took me about an hour on the lathe to turn them up to size. The only issue would be ensuring you have about 4~5mm gap between the rudder stocks and the female hinge parts to allow the Delrin top hats to be inserted on the insides top and bottom so that the rudder stocks will hold them in place so they don't fall out, particularly the top one which will be in the correct ‘top hat’ orientation as opposed to the lower one being upside down but held in place by gravity until the rudder stock is inserted. The faces of the stock and hull hinges will need to be smooth and even to ensure the weight of the rudder on the top hat brims doesn’t wear them out prematurely. Delrin is a lovely material to turn on a lathe, just be sure to dispose of the turnings responsibly.

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I like the sound of top hat bushes, but there isn't an extra 2mm of stainless to play with on my gudgeons to accommodate them. So my solution - I think - is going to be to combine Martin's and Dirk's suggestion, and to make up new plates with enough extra space to allow for a 12mm top hat bush. There is plenty of room between the back of the existing gudgeon plates and the front face of the rudder to allow the extra mm for the top hat and still have plenty of stainless for strength, so the new plates will overhang the existing gudgeons slightly. Since I lack both a lathe and Martin's skill in using one I might try plastic bushes from the internet and change them each winter. Rather than welding the plates to the gudgeons, which would mean taking the gudgeons off the boat, I thought I might use an MMA adhesive which the internet assures me is as strong.

Marks out of 10?

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I agree that bushes are a good solution although there is the sloppiness in the rudder stock to consider as well as the play in the gudgeons.
Modern synthetic bushes are certainly very versatile (Igus for example).
Adding plates to carry bushes using methacrilate adhesive would make me anxious on such an important part of the boat as the contact area would be quite small. I am no expert on such things and may well be wrong.

I do thing there is a risk of over complicating the problem. The original set up is crude but lasted close to 10,000 miles on our boat and replacing the bolts with very slightly fatter ones has kept things quiet for a further five years so far.

A brief note to round off my experience, and also to eat humble pie. Martin's original suggestion of reaming the holes from 12mm to 1/2" was far simpler and when I realised that I would be losing a maximum of 0.2mm of stainless around the hole (of which probably more than half had already been lost by the wear causing the issue in the first place) it was also obviously the most sensible.

Lacking Martin's skills I found a man who owned a reamer and knew how to use it; it took him about five minutes and I was undercharged accordingly. I took care to order new 1/2" bolts that had long enough shanks to ensure that the threaded part did not bear against the gudgeon plate, which entailed some packing washers and cutting off the over-length part of the thread, but that was within my skill set and took 20 minutes. Total cost inc labour about £30.

What did take at least an hour was getting the bolts into the holes as needless to say the holes weren't in perfect alignment and all is now very tight indeed, but after a great deal of sweating and swearing I now have a totally clonk-free rudder which is still feather-light on the wheel but doesn't wake the crew any time a wavelet hits the boat. Should have done it years ago.

Of course every silver lining has a cloud, which is the next post.

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