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I put in the new Vetus K75 engine mounts outns and did a preliminary alignment.  Since the boat is on the hard I will have to redo this later, but this is at least in the ball park.  The old alignmnet was very bad.

I found that now the engine sits quite a bit higher in the front and the water pump pulley is touching the stairs.  Then looking at the stairs I saw some older indenting there from previous rubbing.  Looks like this pulley had rubbed before, even with the old alignment.

Is this common?  I was suprise to not find any previous post on this.

My first though is to trim the wood away a little bit.  Is that a normal thing to do?

This may all get better once a redo the alignment in the water.

I found my muffler had come lose from the wood mount and the wood mount lose from the hull.  So I ripped the mess out and will refurbush and re-install.

I found that it was a very tight fit getting the muffler out and without the wood base being lose I am not sure I would have gotten it out.  I took it out behind the engine over the shaft.  My goal is to improve this so that the muffler can easily be removed and installed.

I see no purpose for the lip around the bottom of the muffler.  Four decent SS bolts will hold the muffler in place as well as that lip.  I plan on cutting the lip completely off so that the muffler bottom is smooth.  I believe this will make installation/removal much easier. 

I expect to re-pressure test the unit after the cut.

Has anybody done this?  Just wondering.  Inspecting the unit I can't see how this cut would really damage the joint.

Also, is there any value in re-coating the inside of the muffler?  Maybe slosh about some acitone to clean and then slosh about some good paint.  Anybody done that ?

I am about to pay Hood $150 for a new extrusion section for a 900/915 furler. 

If anybody has a good condition used one laying in the garage (because you might use it "some day") I'd be happy to buy it for $50.

Sorry for all the posts, I'm trying to tackle that winter TODO list.

When replacing the forestay, are you typically replacing the turnbuckle and toggle below the turnbuckle?  Those things look to be in fine shape, spending most of their life protected inside the furler drum.

Is it considered OK to remove the forestay and support the mast with two halyards for a few WEEKS while the new forestay is built?  They will want the old one for sizing.

Thanks,
Bill

I got that halyard top spining thing off my Hood roller furler.  I took it appart to inspect the condition and found some very odd bearnings.  Has anybody taken this thing apart and cleaned/refurbished it?

The bearings are half big and half little balls, alternating.  The inner bearings are 38 balls and the outer ones are 40 balls, very odd for other wise identical bearings.  Were they really trying to save money on 4 balls?

The inner two bearings are in fine shape (the take no load), the outer two are more worn (they take the load).  I think that just swapping the races and some new grease will provide another 20 years of perfect service.

Has anyone replaced these bearings?  It seems that Hood (now Pompanette) only sells the whole unit for $500.

Pompanette sells bearings for the drum, are they the same ?

I needed to refurbish my Hood roller furler and replace the forestay.  At first I could not figure out how to get this mess off, but eventually I managed to remove my entire Hood 900 furler single-handed with the forestay still up.  I did this in a very controlled manner while winds ran 20 knots gusting to 30 knots.  So I thought I would share this trick.

You need a jib halyard and also a spinnaker halyard attached to a block on that "spinnaker crane" at the mast top.  You need 80 feet of extra line, 3-strand type works best, use your anchor line for this.  You need 60 feet of basic 5/16 line to be cut up ($24).  And a few tools, vise grips are handy.

Cut the 60 foot 5/16 line into 4 foot pieces, melt the ends. I will call these "loop lines".

Remove the jib.  Fix the jib halyard to the bow cleat, tighten.  This is what will hold the mast up.  I also pulled my main halyard forward to backup this jib halyard.

Tie the end of the spinnaker halyard to the boat-end of the anchor line.  Begin to raise the anchor line up.  At a point 4 feet below the start of the anchor line tie a "loop line" to the anchor line, sticking the loop line through the twist of the anchor line so it cannot slip in position.  Then wrap the loop line around the roller furler and back to the anchor line, then tie again to the anchor line.  This loop should be small enough that the anchor line stays close to the furler, but plenty lose to allow movement up and down.  You will be creating a "cradle" that will hold the furler in place.

Raise the spinnaker halyard another 4 feet.  Now tie another loop line in the same way.  Continue doing this until the anchor line is ALMOST to the mast top.  At this point you will have about 14 loop lines on the anchor line which will support the forestay and furler.  Tie off the spinnaker halyard.

Do NOT pull the spinnaker halyard so high that the top loop line has any risk of going over the top of the furler extrusions at the top.

Now take the anchor line at the bottom and route it around something forward like the bowsprit if you have one.  Then run it back to the bow cleat and tension it by pulling down on it and taking up on the cleat end.

Loosen up the backstay turnbuckle, about an inch is good.   Put heavy tension on the Jib halyard.  Put good tension on the bottom of the anchor line (the cradle).

At this point the forestay and furler are slack and are nicely cradled by the loop lines.  You can easily disconnect the forestay from the bow and remove the furler sections, one at a time.  The forestay and furler sections will stay safely in place while you do this.  Have your drill handy to drill-out the rivets.

In an few weeks I will put the thing back up and try to use almost the same process.

Hope this helps,
Bill

I have fixed many thing so far on my '87 C34, but so far fixing the anchor light has eluded me.  I have the new light, new wire, been up the mast 3 times so far, and now stuck on..

The wire in the mast seems to be wrapped or tied around a bolt which is 3 inches below the mast top.  This appears to be a way to carry the weight of the hanging wire rather than have it pull down on the light fixture.   Without un-wrapping the wire form that bolt I can't pull the new wire through the mast.

There is a 1 inch hole directly over the bolt/wrap where the anchor light sat.  I can see the bolt and wrapped wire and can even hook it a bit by sticking bent stuff in there.  but so far no luck untying it.

At this point dropping the mast is not in the plan.  Is there any trick to getting that wire untied, or un wrapped, from that bolt?

I searched the forum and found one mention of this wire/bolt/wrap by Ron Hill.  Has anybody dealt with this?

So we are going to try our first race, in a very relaxed way, and we are reviewing that US Sail category 4P safety requirements they say we need.  There is a note in there about being able to open the companion way when the boat is upside-down with water pressure on things.

Certainly this is not a situation we expect to be in, but this got us thinking that we need a handle on the sliding companionway cover on the INSIDE of the boat.

I think it is odd there is not one already there.  Do other boats have this?  Mine is 1987 C34.

Is there a standard Catalina part number made to just the right size to fit the existing bolts (wishing) ?

Has anyone added this?  What did you use ?

Thanks,
Bill

On an '87 standard rig...

Aside from the expected swinging of the boom from side to side, and the ability of the boom to lift and fall a bit; is the boom expected to rotate on its own axis?  for example when on port tack, would you expect the bottom of the boom to be tilted towards the cabin top and the sail groove on the boom to be tilted away?

My boom does NOT twist like this, it is fixed in this axis.  but it is fixed WRONG.  The bottom of the boom is permanently twisted towards Port and the sail groove towards starboard.

Should I twist it back straight?  Or should I fix something so that is freely rotates?

Thanks,
Bill

Does anyone close to the Washington DC area, or between DC and New York, have a cutlass bearing removal tool I can rent?

I am looking to use it the weekend of Nov 7th.

Something like the Strut-Pro or home-made version of same (http://www.strutpro.com)

Thanks,
Bill

new boat owner here with second newbie question...

In the boat I just purchased there was some moisture detected in the forward portion of the cockpit floor, but the floor is still solid and no hollowness.  A survey in Oct 2008 did not show this moisture.  During the year between the two surveys the boat was on the hard with the bow positioned too low causing rain water to sit in the cockpit rather than run out the rear.  So, I believe this moister may be pretty new.

First, should I do anything?  Once properly blocked or in the water this will dry out on its own?  (wishful thinking)

To dry this out the surveyor said holes would need to be cut in the cockpit surface the let it air out for a while.  Then repair them.

After thinking about this I believe it would be smarted to cut the air-out holes from the bottom up (in the ceiling of the aft cabin).  The water will tend to drip down and out rather than up anyway.  The hole could be left open for very long, maybe forever.  If I do cover the hole I could use a removable cover.  So is this a good idea, or just dumb?  If dumb why?

Has anyone ever tried using a vacume pump to pull the moisture out faster?

Thanks for any advice,
Bill

Hello! I am a brand new 1987 Catalina 34 owner.  I just bought the boat this past weekend.  The boat is in good structural condition but needs some real cleaning and maintenance catchup.  I hope you will be patient I may have a few newbie questions.

First item of business is the rudder.   I did search the forum and wiki but am still concerned.

From under the boat the rudder appears to be about 3/4" lower than it should.  I can actually pick up the rudder and lift it 3/4".  On inspection it appears that there should be a wider bushing (nylon I think) between the shaft cap (emergency tiller thing) and the seat just below it.

There is a nylon collar below the cap, but it is hard to image it was 3/4" thicker at one time.  How thick is the collar under the cap suppose to be?

Is it possible that there is some other reason?  Could the rudder itself have slid down the shaft?  Could the cap bolt hole in the shaft have elongated?  Could the seat below the cap and collar be depressed down in the fiberglass?

is this really just a nylon collar issue, because 3/4" seems like a lot.

Thanks,
Bill