Play in tiller to rudder shaft

[lateral]

I have isolated it to either elongated holes in the yoke that houses the wooden tiller that has a bronze bolt through. Or the bolt is worn.
Drill oversize and sleeve or braze and redrill?

The slop is quite annoying. It feels as though you hitting small objects in the water.
Bad pic-Had to enlarge and crop.
Searched the net & couldn't find brazing and re-drilling specifically.

[lateral]

Better pic.

[DeepFrz]

Better picture of the wrong part of the tiller assembly.

You need to put an annulus through the wood where the 2 bolts pass through. Otherwise the wood gets compressed/crushed and the assembly loosens up. You can use stainless, bronze, aluminum or a thickened epoxy insert into the tiller handle. If using metal make sure its compatible with the bolts. You may have to shim the handle to take up any slack between the wood and metal rudder head.

[Jim Cate]

Please clear up something for me: is the play that you are concerned with between the timber tiller and the bronze tiller head, or is it between the tiller head and the rudder post?

Makes a big difference, and is not clear from your description.

Jim

[DeepFrz]

Yeah, I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion.

[lateral]

Sorry somewhat non-specific. I think it is here.
It improves dramatically if you tighten the dome nuts HARD.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Without a genuine diagnosis of the problem, why seek out solutions? Including attempting to do so on multiple forums. When given 5 minutes with a pair of wrenches, you'll know without question where the problem truly is. And then can even provide us with pictures of same. If in fact the problem needs an outside opinion to sort it out.
You're burning time on your end, & ours, non?

It still could be:
- The head of the rudder post
- The sideplates of the fitting on the tiller
- The bolt through the rudder post, which connects the tiller fitting
- As well as some loose bolts through the tiller
- Or ovaled out holes in the tiller itself
Plus several other possiblities that could cause these symptoms. Some severe, some inconsequential. None of which really take more than 5 min. each to check.

Normally I wouldn't nail someone like this. At least not at first. But given several postings providing an anorexic amount of info, over the span of a couple of days, on several forums, is kinda silly. Especially when the problem is quite easy to diagnose. And 75% of the possible issues are dead simple to fix.

[lateral]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Without a genuine diagnosis of the problem, why seek out solutions? Including attempting to do so on multiple forums. When given 5 minutes with a pair of wrenches, you'll know without question where the problem truly is. And can even provide us with pictures of same.
You're burning time on your end, & ours, non?

I know nothing about this bronze mechanisn and a net search hasn't helped. I was hoping someone recognised the design and had addressed this problem before.
When I refoiled the rudder, cut the rudder tube and installed the AP lever I couldnt get the yoke off the head the bolt was frozen in. And after a 10yr plus
rebuild took a short cut and left it unserviced as patience was at lowest ebb.
You have given me invaluable affirmation already on the major overhaul I did
on this rudder, thankyou. If bothers you that i posted on another forum just don't reply. I pretty much have a plan of attack from contributers at SA. Sometimes you just get left high and dry, ie nobody knows or wants to know.
It just so happen they ran with it.
I can fab stainless but bronze I have no experience with, and little faith.
A net search on filling and redrilling bronze looked dodgy.
I do appreciate what Jim And Fitz have to say what ever forum its on because
i have read and appreciated their input for years.~

[lateral]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Without a genuine diagnosis of the problem, why seek out solutions? Including attempting to do so on multiple forums. When given 5 minutes with a pair of wrenches, you'll know without question where the problem truly is. And then can even provide us with pictures of same. If in fact the problem needs an outside opinion to sort it out.
You're burning time on your end, & ours, non?

It still could be:
- The head of the rudder post
- The sideplates of the fitting on the tiller
- The bolt through the rudder post, which connects the tiller fitting
- As well as some loose bolts through the tiller
- Or ovaled out holes in the tiller itself
Plus several other possiblities that could cause these symptoms. Some severe, some inconsequential. None of which really take more than 5 min. each to check.

Normally I wouldn't nail someone like this. At least not at first. But given several postings providing an anorexic amount of info, over the span of a couple of days, on several forums, is kinda silly. Especially when the problem is quite easy to diagnose. And 75% of the possible issues are dead simple to fix.

Might seem to you with your wealth of experience of these mechanisms.

On the detail; People ask, one feels obliged to reply
I regard myself as reasonably analytical, but the movement maybe compounding from several different areas and is not obvious in each individually.

Obviously the frozen in bolt has to come out.

[lateral]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Better picture of the wrong part of the tiller assembly.

You need to put an annulus through the wood where the 2 bolts pass through. Otherwise the wood gets compressed/crushed and the assembly loosens up. You can use stainless, bronze, aluminum or a thickened epoxy insert into the tiller handle. If using metal make sure its compatible with the bolts. You may have to shim the handle to take up any slack between the wood and metal rudder head.

Definitely not in the timber to bronze DF, but thanks anyway.

Jim thanks again for your valuable input, have learned much from your posts over the years.
I am going to remove the bolt this weekend, one way or another.
If I have to I'll drill it out.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Pardon my faux pax, if it was one. And chalk it up to me getting my 1st tool set as a gift, at age 3. From Sears (?) thanks to my folks. Love'd thom for that, ditto on my feelings about tools & tinkering.
EDIT: And yes, sometimes my handle is more than fitting in describing certain personality traits I occassionally display.

Aside from the already mentioned possible causes there are a few (serious) ones that likely can be ruled out. But are part of the problem solving flow chart nonetheless. Such as:
- The rudder shaft itself has corroded due to stray current corrosion, & that it's now loose where it enters the bearings.
- Bad rudder bearings.
- The metal skeleton inside of the rudder has degraded with age, & salt water exposure. Thus causing play in the shaft, which you're feeling through the tiller.
- The rudder's internal structural core is breaking down, thus allowing for it's wobble from this to be felt through the tiller.

Realistically it's probably one of the two that you mentioned. And or, that the bolt holes in the tiller itself have ovaled out over time. So that when you tighten the bolt at the rudder post, it also snugs down the fitting on(to) the tiller itself.

Which, it's tough to specifiy the solution for that without know the dimensions of everything involved. Ditto stating with 100% accuracy, the best fix for some of the other possible problems that may be causing this. Primariy due to not knowing how much material is left around the perimeter of each/all of the bolt holes in all of the assemblies.

For example, you don't want to drill out a hole in order to accomodate a larger bolt, if in doing so, other parts of the assembly are excessively weakened by this.
However were you to post pics of all of the key assemblies (tiller included), & engineering drawings with key dimensions noted on them, then making rec's is child's play. So to speak. And doing this, live, on site, would be even easier. Making a diagnosis & recommending a course of action I mean. Thus my "5 minute" comments earlier.


Edit: Some tricks to free the bolt sans drilling are; heat, cold, penetrating oil, shock (or hammering). And cutting off it's head/the nut, along with using a drift pin & hammer... Carefully, as it may be stuck, simply due to being bent. Though corrosion too could be making it stick.

Ah, & before trying forceful removal methods, ensure that said bolt's not fully threaded for it's entire length. Which corrosion over that kind of thread length would make any fastener stick. Along with rendering it impervious to most, but not all, hammering. As a sledge still might free it, but at a high cost

[lateral]

Thankyou- food for thought!
Very comprehensive.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by lateral

Thankyou- food for thought!
Very comprehensive.

Denada

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by lateral

I know nothing about this bronze mechanisn and a net search hasn't helped. I was hoping someone recognised the design and had addressed this problem before.
When I refoiled the rudder, cut the rudder tube and installed the AP lever I couldnt get the yoke off the head the bolt was frozen in. And after a 10yr plus
rebuild took a short cut and left it unserviced as patience was at lowest ebb.
You have given me invaluable affirmation already on the major overhaul I did
on this rudder, thankyou. If bothers you that i posted on another forum just don't reply. I pretty much have a plan of attack from contributers at SA. Sometimes you just get left high and dry, ie nobody knows or wants to know.
It just so happen they ran with it.
I can fab stainless but bronze I have no experience with, and little faith.
A net search on filling and redrilling bronze looked dodgy.
I do appreciate what Jim And Fitz have to say what ever forum its on because
i have read and appreciated their input for years.~

From the reddened section above it seems you can take the rudder head fitting (RHF) off.

Guessing here, but it looks like the RHF might be keyed, and the keyway in either the RHF or the rudder shaft, or the key itself, may be worn.

Or it could be, as you suspect, the bolt holes of the yoke itself are wallowed out.

At any rate the easiest confirmation that the yoke holes are bad is to remove the nuts and look; wear will be self evident.

Probably the most efficient approach will be to remove the RHF, remove the tiller from the yoke, and work on it on the bench.

If you can get the bolt out whole, and the bolt hole in the RHF itself isn't wallowed out, and it's just the yoke that is the problem, then your fix is simple; make or have made (some sizes are available off-the-shelf) some bushings to take up the slack. You'll have to drill out the yoke to the proper size to accept the bushing, but it looks like you have plenty of meat there to accommodate that.






If the RHF bolt hole is wallowed out, you may or may not have a bigger problem. If it's only a small amount, you may be able to go up to the next size bolt with no problems; the RHF looks relatively beefy in that regard.
Choose the bolt that gets rid of the slop with the least increase in diameter, either metric of imperial, and don't be constrained to bronze; 316 SS should work fine here.

If you can't get the bolt out, the solution is probably a drill press, if you don't have one or access to one, it might be best to bring the RHF to someone who does...