Missing nut on rudder bolt

[Jonathan Stuart]

Hi,

Recovered my boat yesterday and saw there is now no nut on the upper mounting/swivel bolt for my BRe's rudder. I assume this should just be a nylock nut but can someone confirm pls? As an aside,  this upper mount is a pan head machine screw which I think is a bit odd and would have thought a bolt without a thread where the rudder swivels would be better. So I might replace the bolt too but I just want to check what should be there.

Jonathan

[Peter Cockerton]

Jonathon

What you describe is the same arrangement as my boat, i.e a pan head bolt facing down on the top hinge and up on the bottom hinge with a nylock nut to secure. The thread appears to be all the way up on the bolt.

Let me know about Morbihan as soon as you can.

Peter

[Jonathan Stuart]

Thanks Peter.  So you've just got nylocs on both bolts? I assumed that was the case but wanted to check before replacing. I'll fit one for now but might replace the machine screws this winter with something more appropriate.

[Julian Swindell]

I had the same two machine screws and nyloc nuts on my BC20. I found that they allowed the rudder head to move slightly, as each nut screw could move a little distance in opposite directions. I replaced then this last winter with a single length of threaded rod and nyloc nuts which goes through both fittings. This reduced the amount of movement noticeably and had worked pefectly well all of this summer.

[Peter Cockerton]

Jonathon

That's correct a single nyloc nut on each pivot bolt. Need to look carefully but it looks awkward to get a flat head screwdriver on the top pan head bolt to tighten the nyloc nut. I'm sure i read on the forum that a suggestion was made to put a single non threaded bar through top and bottom swivels with enough thread at either end to put two locking nuts. Used search function but can't find the reference.

It may be worth advising us on search methods, i.e you can use *.* in the word or phrase area when searching for posts by author, are there any other tricks.

Peter Cockerton

[Peter Cockerton]

Julian

Looks like our postings crossed in the ether, i knew i had seen it somewhere on the forum.

Peter

[Julian Swindell]

Hi Peter,
If you can see on the poor photo, I had to put the original top bolt back in upside down because I couldn't get a screwdriver into the slot. I tried it using a knife blade held across the slot, but it was all so clumsy I eventually put it back upside down. There is a theoretical possibility of it falling out, but the bottom bolt was in that way round, so I gave it a go. The screw thread inside the pivot doesn't seem to have created any problem, and the threads don't seem to have worn. I will take the rod out over the winter, have a look and report back.

[Jonathan Stuart]

Thanks Peter and Julian. I have found a SS M8 nyloc nut in the garage so will fit that tomorrow. Might change things this winter but this will at least return the rudder to its intended state.