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dropping the rudder

T

Terry Davis

New Member
I have to take the rudder down to pull the shaft out and replace it.
I just want to make sure that after removing the packing nut and loosening the gudgeon at the bottom, the rudder should come out.
Is it a 1 man job?
I assume I have to dig a hole.

I could not find a thread answering those questions. Thanks for the help.
 
Terry

The rudder is heavy, but one man can do the job with the right equipment. I purchased two 1/2 ton chain falls from Harbor Freight. Secured to the cockpit winches, and a heavy strap under the rudder, the chain falls work great. Here are photos.

Jim
 

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It is heavy. Get help. I would recommend you get a jack or a platform of some sort to put under the rudder as you remove the bolts. They are long and you don't want to bend or break them. Yes, you have to dig a hole. On most boats, the bronze bolts on the gudgeon are covered over with fairing compound that needs to be removed to access the bolt heads. I have never dropped my rudder; I let the yard guys do it. Others on the board have dropped their own.
 
I did it just with a line from the cockpit winches to under the rudder. Getting it out with one person wasn't too hard. I needed help getting it back in.

Make sure you have enough room to drop it.
 
Here is a thread from when I did the job with lots of pictures.

Replacing cutless bearing.

My boat is on the hard having a bottom job done. The cutless needs replaced. The estimate from the yard is a couple thousand, due to the work of removing the rudder etc. Is this something me and a friend could do in a day? Two? It's work, but seems straight forward unless we run into significant...
www.morgan38.org
 
Was able to drop mine with no digging. Boat was blocked up with 1 foot under keel and about 22 1/2 inches under the rudder.
I also did like Warren with lines from the cockpit
 

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Nope. I had the haul out diagram from this forum in hand while they were hauling it out. That block is well forward of the holding tank. Not sure about any haul outs in the 40 years prior to me getting the boat but so far no signs of the tank top problems.
 
Hello fellow Morgan 38 owners,

This is my first post, and I wanted to share my experience removing the rudder, thanks to the helpful information in this thread. I successfully removed the rudder on my own, making sure the boat was blocked high enough to allow for 24” of clearance underneath of the rudder.

I then took the rudder to David Walker at Foss Foam Products in Florida. Upon my arrival, he had the 383/384 rudder mold prepped and ready. He walked me through the entire rebuild process and gave me a quick factory tour. David and his team reinforced the existing rudder stock with heavy stainless steel bars and encased it in a new fiberglass shell with a fresh closed cell foam core—completed in just three days!

It was by far the easiest boat-related transaction I’ve ever had. I’ll be reinstalling the rudder with new gudgeon bushings in the spring. The total cost, including 7% tax and a 3% credit card fee, was $2,865.46. An expensive Christmas present, indeed. I considered round-trip shipping from Maryland, which would have cost an additional $750, but I opted to visit my parents in Florida instead.

I would like to encourage anyone needing to remove their rudder that it can be done relatively easily and safely by yourself in under three hours. A big thank you to all the mentors on this site who make owning a Morgan 38 a bit more enjoyable and a little less intimidating.

Happy Holidays!
Mike

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Very cool to see the process of making a rudder. Thank you for posting. I will probably need to do this maybe my next haul, and I'm not looking forward to the 2 way shipping to the west coast. Adding in the cost of time on the hard stand, it may be cheaper to have them supply the rudderpost, then I can have the rudder on hand and just do the swap in a day. We don't haul out for the winter here, so space and time in the yard is very expensive and to be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

I have never been able to keep the rudderpost from leaking, even with 3 turns of packing. I am wondering if it is worth engineering a fix. The issue I think is that because there is no upper bearing, the packing enlarges and gets loose very quickly. I have an idea that might be a simple fix, to replace the lower turn of packing with an HDPE or similar bearing. Similar to a cutlass bearing with slots for water to lubricate it. That would hold the rudderpost so it would be easier for the 2 remaining turns to seal.

I highly recommend switching to dyneema instead of the cable. I made the switch 600 miles offshore when the not very old and still checked out fine SS cable broke, and I am not going back. Dyneema doesn't suffer metal fatigue from rolling around sheaves that are undersized. It's easy to work with and cheaper. It should last longer without failing, and you should be able to see issues with it before failing that are not visible with steal. And if it does fail, it's cheap and easier to replace. The sheaves should be replaced at the same time, but the whole idler sheave assembly is probably rusted and needing replacement anyway.
 
When you get ready to put it back in, get some .062" thick Teflon sheet and wrap around the rudder post between the gudgeon. This will take up the slack and make the rudder not "grunt" when at anchor.
 
Yes, you should use some material to insulate the rudderpost from the gudgeon. I used HDPE, cut from a milk jug. After a 34k mile circumnavigation, it was still in good shape. Whatever you use doesn't need to be fancy or expensive. Also, you should have an anode on one of the gudgeon bolts. There are several threads here about damaged gudgeons that have needed replaced.
 
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