[Public-list] Emergency Request for help with a part!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!...

[FINNUS505 at aol.com]

Hey Stephen, Eddie, John,
 
Thx for all the advice and info. I went back to Edson and bought the rudder  
post cap. Lucky I took the extra day to make my decision. The guy I spoke to 
on  Thursday said I had to buy the entire gooseneck fitting, both the rudder 
post  cap and the tiller forks, for 212.00. On Friday, he was away from his desk 
when  I walked in, and the guy who helped me just sold me the rudder post cap 
for 105.  And when he heard that I had a rudder post that was not keyed, but 
drilled for a  half inch bolt and that I was planning on taking the fitting to 
a machinist to  get it drilled out for the bolt, he offered to do the job in 
his machine shop at  Edson right there and then. Very nice.
 
Eddie, when he brought me the part, very nicely drilled and  tapped, with the 
nub that holds the tiller up when the part is used  conventionaly nicely 
ground off to make room for my bolt head, it was very  obvious that the newly 
drilled hole was in the middle of the outside of the  fitting, but it did not 
intersect the key way inside the fitting evenly. I guess  the key way on many of 
these fittings is not centered. 
 
Stephen, the machinist raised a very interesting issue when we talked about  
tapping the thread into the fitting, so that the locking bolt would thread 
into  the fitting, and then into the rudder post. He brought to my attention that 
it  would be nearly impossible to match the two threads exactly, so the bolt 
would  thread from fitting into rudder post. The Whitby boys must have tapped 
the  rudder post hole using the rudder cap fitting thread as a starting point. 
I  hadn't forseen that problem, but immidiately understood. How did you deal 
with  this dilemma? I thought that he should drill out the fitting with a hole 
just  large enough to allow the bolt to slip through it, thread and all, and 
then the  bolt would thread into the rudder post. The machinist recommended 
that he does  drill the fitting with the correct size hole to allow tapping a 
thread to take  the bolt, on the outside chance that it would meet the rudder 
post hole's thread  correctly. If it didn't, then I could drill the fitting's 
thread out to allow  the bolt to pass through. I thought it was worth a shot, as 
long a shot as it  was. As it happened, the threads did not match, and I had 
to drill them out.  Further, the hole in the rudder post was not exactly 
perpendicular to the rudder  post, which I had not noticed before, so I had to do a 
further bit of grinding  to the fitting hole to allow the bolt to line up 
with the rudder post hole and  thread. I was SOOOOO careful in all this fitting 
to not mar the thread in the  rudder post. Geeeez, what a nightmare that would 
be.
 
As careful as I was to not grind out one molecule of bronze from the  fitting 
more than I had to, I was still uncomfortable with the security of the  
fitting on the rudder post in regards to preventing the fitting from twisting  
under load. When I put the fitting on the rudder post, I set the bolt in West  
System Epoxy, hardened with High Density Filler. I figured, well, hoped, that  
the high denisty reinforced epoxy will fill any gaps between the threads of the  
bolt and the inside of the hole in the fitting. The epoxy is limited to the  
space immidiately around the bolt. The bolt had enough residual grease on it,  
that I will be able to break the bolt out with a long handled wrench if/when 
I  ever want to take the fitting off the rudder post again.
 
I did the job on Saturday. Because it has been a little cool here in Mass,  I 
wanted to give the epoxy an extra day to cure. Then today it was blowing 20  
with gusts to 30. When the weather allows, I'll reship the tiller and give it  
all try.
 
Thanks for all the helpful advice, guys. Gordon, I have a big honking vice  
grips aboard if all else fails.:)
 
Lee
Stargazer #255