As seen in the earlier post, the cutlass bearing isn't quite properly aligned with the shaft. Luckily, the shaft is riding low in the strut, so I need to lower the strut - a lot easier than raising it.
The strut is held on with 12 Monel bolts, each 14" long, that go right through the hull and the aft floors. In this picture the bolts have been driven about 2" down below the holes from inside the lazarette.
In driving them out, I damaged the thread ends. I took them into a local shop to have the thread ends repaired. (I couldn't get a die to start to repair them manually.) The shop quoted me $75 just to repair the 12 damaged threads, so I asked how much to buy new bolts. Cue hysterical laughter..... Well over $100 per bolt to buy new ones. The budget won't stand for $1500 worth of bolts, so recut the threads it is!
The strut is removed, showing the pads. These are in good clean shape, so a lexan shim, 3/16" thick, on each of these will bring the strut down to the right point.
The strut, fortunately, had been installed after the fibreglass sheathing on the hull, so it dropped right off once the bolts were out.
Here's the strut off the boat. The cutlass bearing has been removed, and it's ready for the new one. This thing weighs about 150 lbs! Good job I had some help dropping it off.
The design has a long shaft, so the strut is truly necessary. In this picture you can see the box keel of galvanized steel.
Here's the strut back in place, shim installed, bedding compound in, and the bolts back. I did buy new nuts, even though I re-used the Monel bolts. Even the damn nuts were expensive enough :-(
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