Bristol 41.1 Rudder Shoe

[Moby Burton]

I own a 1986 Bristol 41.1. A recent survey suggested that there was too much play in the lower rudder bearing. I have dropped the rudder but can't figure out how to remove the shoe from the rudder. It almost appears that the rudder was built around the shoe. Any ideas on how to remove the shoe and repair the pintle or gudgeon?

[robwilk37]

not familiar with your particular boat, but the shoe casting is likely through-bolted to the skeg or deadwood with the heads buried under bog/fairing. careful use of a grinder should expose the fasteners...

[Moby Burton]

I found the bolts holding the shoe to boat. I removed the bolts and dropped the rudder with the shoe attached. I can't figure out how to get the shoe off the rudder. The shoe has a pintol which goes up into the rudder.

[robwilk37]

oops sorry, responded b4 the caffeine had kicked in this morning. a pic would help...

[LeaseOnLife]

See this thread:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...val-74745.html

It looks like there is another piece, attached to the rudder. In the attached picture, you can see a line/crack in the fairing. Remove this and it would give you the needed clearance.

Dirk

[Moby Burton]

Thank you. This might be the lead I needed. I'll get the grinder out and see what I can find and will report back.

[MarkSF]

I have some pics from when the lower bearing on my 31.1 was repaired. You have to cut a piece out of the rudder to separate the pintle and gudgeon.

This is the final picture after repair, before paint :



This is during repair : you can see the bronze rod inserted into the rudder.



Unfortunately, you can see the piece that had to be cut out to separate the pintle and gudgeon. They did indeed build the thing around those parts. Can't say it isn't tough!

[Moby Burton]

Thank you so much. My rudder mounting is identical. I drilled out the mounting holes for the filler piece and hit metal. Are they bronze screws with slotted heads or something else. Also, did you repair the pintle / gudgeon? I have about 1/8" of slop and don't know whether this is so much that I should bother with a repair.

[MarkSF]

Well it might be 1/8" now, but it's not going to get better, only worse, so if you plan to keep the boat for any length of time, it's worth doing.

The yard was doing this work but I know that they pressed new bronze inserts in for the pintle and gudgeon.

[Moby Burton]

You are right. I am now on the journey to figure out how to removed the filler piece. I seam to have 4 or 5 bronze screws with stripped tops holding the filler piece in place. I'll get there and will report back.

[Moby Burton]

It's been awhile but I've made some progress. I removed the shoe and rudder from the boat. I then removed the piece of fiberglass as shown in your photos. I checked the diameter of the pintle and gudgeon. The pintle is slightly oblong with a difference in diameter of 1/32" fore and aft and a difference of 3/32" side to side.. My next step is to take the whole thing into a machine shop to see if they have a proposed fix to bring it up to new.