Happy Puppy was delivered with the factory standard bearings which really aren’t bearings at all, but rather spherical polyethylene bushings. The lower bushing is mounted in a short fibreglass tube bonded to the bottom of the boat, while the upper unit is mounted to the underside of the deck using a rather Rube Goldberg-ish fibreglass housing that is bolted to the deck with four 5/16 carriage bolts. As you can see from the photo, it is a rather ugly arrangement as can be seen from the photo, but its appearance pales in comparison to how it feels. In a word – dead. Very little feedback to the helmsman because of all the friction, and frightening lag in response in fresh downwind conditions, not to mention the fearsome groaning under load. While we had lived with it for the first two seasons, we decided in the winter of 2009 that enough was enough and that it was time to put in a proper steering system.
Factory Rudder Install
The above photo shows the factory rudder install, aka the ugly duckling. The upper spherical bearing can be seen poking out of the heavy fibreglass mount on the underside of the deck, while the lower unit is installed in the fibreglass tube hidden under the black rubber gaiter. The upper unit is held in place with four machine screws, one of which can be seen near the center of the fibreglass mount. What you can’t see from the photo is that carbon shaft is fitted with two stainless sleeves, one for the upper bushing, and another for the lower. The quadrant is mounted to the shaft using a 5/16 inch bolt, which is drilled through the upper sleeve and shaft.
From the forums of the class website, we discovered that at least one boat had been upgraded with Jefa bearings and that the owners seemed really pleased with the results. So we followed the path through Jefa to their Canadian representatives, CCI of Ottawa where Dave Bradley took great care of us. We settled on the gold-plated version, with self-aligning needle bearings top and bottom, and double thrust bearings in a nice-looking replacement upper housing. The two versions can be found on the Jefa ftp server: The new bearings are beautiful!
So in the spring of 2010, we removed the rudder to begin the task of replacing the bearings. Removal of the quadrant was quick and easy, but upon removing the gaiter on the bottom bearing tube, we were shocked to find that the bottom bushing was filled with stainless drill chips that had apparently come from the drilling of the hole in the shaft for the rudder quadrant. These were nicely embedded in the bushings and had scored them pretty badly. Strike one for quality control!
Once the steering gear had been disassembled, the shaft dropped out easily, and we could do a proper inspection of the work area and the rudder post. The first step was to remove the upper bushing housing and cover plate. The bushing was fitted in a rather massive fibreglass lump (not a very technical term, but certainly accurate!). Fortunately, once the 5/16 inch bolts holding this in place had been removed, this unit came away easily with a few whacks on a chisel inserted into the joint between it and the deck. Score one for weight savings.
The new cover plate and upper bearing housing were quite a bit larger in diameter, so we had to cut out the hole in the deck to accommodate the new bearing unit, then test fit it and drilled the mounting holes. The mounting hole circle lies very close to the bearing housing diameter, so care was required to ensure that the through hole was cut accurately. But once done, the bearing housing slipped in easily, and needed only to be bolted in place with six 1/4 inch machine screws and of course the requisite sealant. We dry mounted the unit to test the fit, waiting until the entire system had been installed to finalize the mounting.
Turning to the bottom end of the shaft, CCI/Jefa had supplied the lower bearing mounted in a neat fibreglass tube that would fit cleanly inside of the existing tube. A test fit quickly revealed that there was some interference, but some diligent work with a drum sander got the two to mate very well in short order. The rudder shaft was test fitted to determine the correct height for the lower bearing unit to keep the rudder top gap to a minimum. Only one problem – the rudder shaft did not fit inside the bearings!! Good thing that we had not bonded anything in place yet!
So out came the two bearings, and the rudder was laid on the ground to figure out what was up. checking the shaft with calipers, we discovered that the shaft was oversize and significantly out of round. Discussions with the good folks at CCI revealed an easy solution for the size problem – replacement of the needle bearings with custom bearings to fit, and new units were ordered from Denmark. Unfortunately, erupting volcanos in Iceland had grounded air traffic, so after a two week delay, we had the requisite new bearings in hand, and we could start anew.
Resolving the out of round was straightforward, but tedious, involving carefully lapping the shaft with a diamond file. Fortunately Bill Layton of the Quebec Evolution loft was on hand to guide the process and keep me honest, and after a few hours of work we had the shaft nice and round and the bearings fit beautifully. A suggestion to anyone else contemplating this upgrade: carefully measure your shaft diameter in as many places as you can before you order the unit, and provide the exact actual dimensions when ordering the bearings. The difference was small (in the order of 0.4mm) but that was enough. The bearings are very precise, and need to be to ensure that there is no slop in the shaft mounting. Also, make sure that you fix any out of round before you finalize the measurement. We did not do this, and are left with about 1/4 inch of play at the bottom of the rudder. If and when we ever replace the needle bearings, we will resolve this, but it is not enough to worry about in the meantime. Much of the out of round was in the region of the quadrant mounting bolt hole – one can only assume that the drilling of this hole was the cause.
With the above photo, the two sleeves are clearly visible. Also visible is the unsleeved upper portion of the shaft that ultimately caused us to re-think the upper bearing mounting (more below)
With the rudder now ready and fitting to the bearings, we epoxied the bottom unit in place and let it cure. We then inserted the rudder and lined it up vertically before finalizing the mounting of the upper unit. The quadrant was then re-installed, and the replacement was complete – or at least it should have been. Unfortunately the upper sleeve on the shaft was located too low to fully engage with the upper bearing which was obviously non-ideal. Further discussions with Jefa/CCI led us to leave it at that for the season, after being assured that the bearing was over-designed and that the incomplete contact would not be a problem in the short term.
The change in steering was phenomenal. The helm was much lighter and responsive, the feedback was great, even in light winds, and the backlash and groaning under heavy loads was completely gone. it was like a new boat.
During the winter of 2010 we worked with Jefa/CCI to resolve the bearing fit. Ultimately, we decided to mount the upper bearing underneath the deck instead of on the upper deck surface. We designed and had built by Pure Ingenuity in Kingston a new cover plate and ring that matched the upper bearing unit. A drawing is below for those interested. The only real challenge in this was that by moving the bearing housing downwards, we also had to move it aft slightly to account for the inclination of the shaft. To ensure adequate strength, we cut a ring of G10 and mounted it to the under surface of the deck, then using a well waxed wooden plug, filled the resulting gap to get the hole size just matching the bearing housing. The photos show the plug in place, the resulting fill and the new holes. The rudder was re-assembled in the spring of 2011, and the bearings now lined up perfectly with the shaft sleeve. The photos of the completed install show how neatly everything has come together. We are very very pleased with the results, and are fully confident in the new system.
The shift in location of the bearing for under-deck is visible in this photo. The gap was filled with epoxy with glass filler, and reinforced with a G-10 plate underdeck (below).
The next series of photos shows the bearing installed, then with the shaft (note how the bearing sits fully on the sleeve now) and the cover plate in place. Just like it was meant to be!
Finally, the complete install. Much cleaner!
In this last image, the set screws holding the shaft are visible on the lower part of the upper bearing unit. These mount to the thrust bearing.
I would be happy to share my experiences with anyone interested in the same upgrade. Just drop me a line using the contact link
Resources:
Jefa drawings
Adaptor plate drawings (for under deck mounting of upper bearing unit)