A27 Leaky rudder post stuffing box

[Jay Knoll]

Hi Everyone

Better Days is on the hard getting a bottom job

And she needs a new cutlass bearing so that means pulling the rudder and shaft.

I mentioned to the mechanic that I could never get the rudder stuffing box to stop leaking, even after repacking and tightening down the gland

Well he thinks he found the problem, the key way on the shaft is much longer than the key. And that portion of the slot which is open catches on the packing compound and tears it up. So he's going to fill the excess portion of the keyway with metal epoxy hoping that it will correct the problem. It will be nice not to have that locker filling with salt water!

Time will tell I'll keep you posted.

Jay

[Hobbit]

Jay,
You might want to take a close inspection of that stuffing box yourself.

Just last Thursday (coincidentally) I was going to fix a very slow leak in my rudder stuffing box. I thought it was a simple repack. ha ha ha. No such luck. A closer inspection revealed it was from under the rudder port. (top flange).

I am going to condense this greatly. My 1987 A27 had a cored hull where the rudder passes through the hull. The hull glass was about 3/8 inch thick, 3/8" of balsa coring and then a relatively thin layer, 1/8" of glass over the top. The coring rotted about 6-7 inched all around the rudder port creating a void. The rudder port bolts could not be tightened and hence the ongoing leak.

I was able to fix it by hauling the boat on my trailer at the State launch and then with about 5 hours of elbow grease, 4 or so square feet of fiberglass mat, and 2/3 quart of resin I was able to make a solid pad.

I did not need to remove the rudder or the bronze carriage bolts. The only parts removed were the tiller arm, packing nut and rudder port. I used a 4 1/2 inch grinder to cut the top glass in about a 7" square. I cleaned out all the punky balsa, dried it with a hair dryer, and wiped the entire area with solvent.

The only fly in the ointment was I didn't want to remove the rudder (more time) and there was an 1 1/4 hole cut through the hull layer of glass for the rudder port. I also did not have a hole saw with me.

I solved it by finding a plastic cap on a cooking oil bottle that was 1 1/4" in diameter and that had deep sides. I put a couple of wraps of electrical tape around the cap, cut a rough hole in it large enough fro the rudder shaft, and slipped it over the rudder shaft (which still extended up through the hull) and pushed the cap into the hole like a bung. It formed a 1 1/4 tube that protected the original hole and had sides that extended up about the thickness of the cored hull. At this point *hindsight* wrap the carriage bolts and rudder shaft with electrical tape to protect the threads and shaft from resin slop.

The rest just involved cutting pieces of mat and hand laying glass in the cutout and around the bolts and shaft up to the original hull cored thickness. After it set up but before it was completely hard I grabbed the plastic cap with 2 pair of needle nose and pulled it out leaving the 1 1/4 inch hole through the new pad.

A little more coaxing from the hair dryer and the pad set hard, and I caulked the flange of the port and re-installed it. Assembly of the rest was straight forward.

Had I wrapped my bolts with tape, and known what I needed (a 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 OD piece of tube) I could have done the repair in 3 to 4 hours.

I don't remember if the rudder port was 1 1/4 or 1 1/2.

I wish I had taken pictures as I worked but I only have pictures of the finished repair.

Good luck!

Hobbit.

[Hobbit]

stuffing_box.jpg

This is very close to the A27 stuffing box assembly except my A27 does not have a rudder port plate installed. (It probably should have one).

I consider the balsa coring of the rudder pad a major deficiency. If all are constructed this way it is a potential leak point on all A27's.

[Beta Don]

Cored hulls are supposed to have a solid block of wood in each area where there will be a hole cut in the hull so that there's no danger of water leaking into the core. It also provides a structural place for bolts and other compressive loads. You can't sufficiently tighten bolts with nothing between the outer hull and the inner skin but core material - The bolts will crush the core and you'll eventually have problems there

If you bore a new hole for a thru hull or depth transducer, you must remove the coring back 3/4 inch or so and fill that void with glass or you'll be introducing a new place for water to enter the core

That said, balsa isn't used as a coring material for hulls very often - It's almost unheard of. Even a tiny leak into a balsa core could eventually destroy the integrity of a large section of the hull. My early 1984 A27 had closed cell foam coring in the hull which does not absorb water, but you still need a solid block of wood wherever there will be a hole through the hull

Most (all?) A-27's have balsa coring in the deck and as we all know, the deck coring on many of these boats is severely rotted out in the area of any portlight or window leakage

It sounds like you've done an exterior 'patch' to an internal problem and one in a structural area at that. Good luck and I hope it holds for you

Don

[Hobbit]

Interesting post Don.

I guess the correct way to repair the rudder pad would have been to build up the pad with a thin piece of Oak then, Maybe a 6 x 6 piece of 3/8".

The "wood" that Albin, or at least this contract manufacturer used was balsa. You could clearly see the 1" square pattern of balsa coring. Frankly I was surprised the rot, or at least deterioration had not spread further. As a result the carriage bolts were little more than finger tight.

I also was surprised that there was no rudder post plate installed. The carriage bolts were directly into the glass hull. The Carriage heads looked like they had 5200 liberally applied before they were tightened and the excess removed. Any compression protection would be strictly from the glass and 5200.

I will be hauling the vessel every year for the winter so I will put it on my maintenance list to check the rudder regularly.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Jay Knoll]

Progress, but as always, "one thing leads to another"

After the rudder stuffing box was reinstalled -- along with the shaft stuffing box I started reassembling the bonding system and quickly discovered that the connectors were really bad, and the wire was extremely corroded. Cuttting back a foot from the end I discovered that the corrosion was still present, the wire hadn't been tinned. So, I decided to redo the whole bonding system. Took about 30 feet of wire a bunch of connectors and a bus bar. Up forward in the engine room I saw that the connections were "daisy chained" from each thru hull and eventually to the engine block. I ran the wire from the rudder forward to the bus bar which I installed on the engine room bulkhead and then ran separate lines to each thru hull and to the engine block. All tidy and good connections now!

[WillieC]

Yes one thing does lead to another... got a minute? (Not now)
What size wire does one use for all that bonding? Are there specific ABYC regs or is it a case of "if #14 is good, #8awg must be better, so I'll round up to 4/0"?
Not trying to hijack your post, just looking at the pics looks like a mix of #10 and #8.
A great example of needing to use tinned wire, by the way. Thanks.

[Jay Knoll]

Willie

There was #8 in the boat so I replaced it with the same gauge,

[Panhdjoe]

Green #8 is the industry standard.

[WillieC]

#8 it is, when I get to it. Thanks.