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« on: March 22, 2023, 09:34:16 AM »
Before you do anything, I'd find a way to get down inside the boat and have someone do the rudder wiggle for you just to make sure the rudder tube isn't moving inside and to see what's going on with the top rudder bearing (which is just a shorter piece of rudder tube). That way you can also look to see if there's any cracking around the rudder tube inside the hull. I assume everything is solid and your gel coat cracks are just gel coat cracks but you could grind the biggest crack down a little to make sure it ends when the fiberglass starts.
I checked mine and I have a little side to side wiggle but your wiggle looks bigger. I didn't feel I needed to do anything about that so I haven't tried Catalina Directs solution or the mylar sheet solution. Both those solutions make sense to me. If you can get a sheet of mylar in there, that sounds easier and less messy but it may not last as long. I had dropped my rudder to repair the rudder and that's when I found my big issue of the missing top bearing. Adding the top bearing cut down the wiggle I had. There wasn't much of anything holding the top of the rudder shaft in place so my issue was different than yours.
The only difficult part of dropping the rudder for me was the quadrant bolts were so jammed in the quadrant with salt and corrosion that they didn't want to come out. I bent the bolts and I think I even broke one doing it and the PB Blaster couldn't get in. I eventually worked them out with leverage and maybe my impact gun. I covered the new bolts with ridiculous amounts of Never Seize when I put the quadrant back on so that couldn't happen again.
Everything else was easy. I had to dig a hole in the ground to drop it all the way out but my boat was over dirt so it was easy enough to dig a little trough for the rudder to drop into. I did it all myself without help by putting boards across the trough I dug so the rudder couldn't drop when I released it inside. It is pretty heavy but I managed to carry it after I removed it.
I think Edson says we're supposed to replace all those cables every 10 years and mine were 30 years old so I actually replaced all that while I had everything apart. I think those instructions gave details on tensioning the cables. You certainly don't want them rod tight and you should be able to deflect the long part of the free cable a little by hand. The idea is just to get rid of any slack so the rudder can't turn unless you turn the wheel.
The other thing I did while the rudder was out was fill the inside of the rudder shaft with foam (as Ron and others have suggested) to keep out water. Water freezing inside the bottom of the rudder tube is what caused my rudder damage. I used some two part foam and it expanded way more than I expected, making a mess. If I had to do that again, I'd do a couple of small pours down the shaft instead of one big pour.
I also replaced the packing in the packing glad while everything was apart.
I did all this 3 years ago so I may be missing something but everything was straightforward and I don't remember any big issues except the bolts. Of course, all that was after removing the back wall of the aft cabin and pulling out the rear water tank to get access. I have the 1990 MK1.5 and there's no good access to work back there without removing the tank. Maybe your newer boat has better access?
Jim
