Tazling
Veteran Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2021
- Messages
- 74
- Vessel Name
- DARXIDE
- Vessel Make
- Grand Banks 32
Me again, sorry for the pepper-shot of questions but I am just getting to know my "new old boat" and discovering many mysteries and fixit items.
I noticed that there was a lot of deadzone/slop in the flybridge wheel but none at the wheelhouse steering station. Thought maybe a keyway on the wheel shaft was bad but no, everything is turning properly if you look inside the upstairs console (what a barn it is, too -- nice to be able to crawl right in there so easily).
So I peeked behind the instrument panel downstairs and found a second big square metal (bronze??) box presumably with gears in it. The slop is here, in the vertical shaft that transmits the upstair steering action to downstairs and vice versa. I see that there's a collar and bolt or machine screw that couples the vertical shaft to the (gear?)box here, and I would bet good money that this bolt goes into a divot or bliind hole in the vertical shaft, and that this hole is now egged out, allowing the bolt end to "rattle" sideways in it, accounting for the 15 degrees or worse of deadzone in the steering up top.
So far so good, but disassembling this mechanism looks hairy. There's an autopilot ganged onto it via bike chain and it looks like a big operation (not zero risk either) to free the vertical shaft.
If anyone else has had this issue and fixed it, I would be interested to know how you went about it. I have been thinking about backing the bolt right out and trying to fill the shaft locating hole with something robust like RTV or even JB weld, then screwing the bolt back in and letting it "set" a while in hope of filling in the egged out area. But that's a bodge job and if I contaminate the threads then it might become impossible ever to disassemble it again.
Alternatively with great care it might be possible to drill it out oversize and use a bigger bolt, but the idea of trying to freehand drill a greasy bronze cylinder inside a crowded electrical panel gives me the heebie jeebies.
Any thoughts, creative ideas, etc are welcome. The boat's usable as-is, but the slop up top is annoying and adds seconds to any change of course.
I noticed that there was a lot of deadzone/slop in the flybridge wheel but none at the wheelhouse steering station. Thought maybe a keyway on the wheel shaft was bad but no, everything is turning properly if you look inside the upstairs console (what a barn it is, too -- nice to be able to crawl right in there so easily).
So I peeked behind the instrument panel downstairs and found a second big square metal (bronze??) box presumably with gears in it. The slop is here, in the vertical shaft that transmits the upstair steering action to downstairs and vice versa. I see that there's a collar and bolt or machine screw that couples the vertical shaft to the (gear?)box here, and I would bet good money that this bolt goes into a divot or bliind hole in the vertical shaft, and that this hole is now egged out, allowing the bolt end to "rattle" sideways in it, accounting for the 15 degrees or worse of deadzone in the steering up top.
So far so good, but disassembling this mechanism looks hairy. There's an autopilot ganged onto it via bike chain and it looks like a big operation (not zero risk either) to free the vertical shaft.
If anyone else has had this issue and fixed it, I would be interested to know how you went about it. I have been thinking about backing the bolt right out and trying to fill the shaft locating hole with something robust like RTV or even JB weld, then screwing the bolt back in and letting it "set" a while in hope of filling in the egged out area. But that's a bodge job and if I contaminate the threads then it might become impossible ever to disassemble it again.
Alternatively with great care it might be possible to drill it out oversize and use a bigger bolt, but the idea of trying to freehand drill a greasy bronze cylinder inside a crowded electrical panel gives me the heebie jeebies.
Any thoughts, creative ideas, etc are welcome. The boat's usable as-is, but the slop up top is annoying and adds seconds to any change of course.
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