Broken cutless bearing housing - how best to repair?

[Polecat]

I was thinking of doing the glass work on the housing first and then trying to pull it but I don't have a clue how much pressure it will take. With the engine and shaft out can you pull them out going toward the engine?

PICT0451.jpg (59.84 KiB) Viewed 1692 times

I'm going to pull the A4 & gas tank anyway - to install a dripless shaft seal. This is on a newer Pearson Renegade it doesn't have the shaft inline a4.

[tpl]

odd your break should be circular: is there some
hardware outside the shaft tube? If not, grind away all
you like, then rebuild.

bearing removal is vastly eased by using a hacksaw
blade to cut the long way through the bearing--it's
rubber, and some brass: it then pulls out rather
easily. Make a handgrip w/ tape.

[Quetzalsailor]

Wasn't there another one of these a couple weeks ago?

Y'need to do a little more investigation, and let us know what you find. Normally(?) there's a stern tube, a piece of bronze or fiberglass pipe which is glassed into the boat. There's often a couple holes to admit water to the space between the Cutless and the shaft seal. There's often a setscrew to keep the Cutless in place. (Alternatives like on our NE 38 or an Island Packet include a couple honkin' castings which are bolted through the 'stern post'; the outer casting has the Cutless and the setscrew and the inner mounts the shaft seal. Other alternatives, like a Morgan 27, feature a Cutless in a shaft strut, and only the shaft seal mounts on the stern tube.)

Guessing solely by the appearance in the photo, your Cutless has spun in the inner half of the stern tube and something was wonky enough to fatigue fail the outer half of the tube or its glassing-in. Take the shaft out and grapple the loose pieces out and tell us what you find.

Normal repair for what I imagine you would have had had not something broken, is to remove the shaft, either make a puller with appropriate sized washers/mandrels and threaded rod, or saw the Cutless longitudinally so as to remove the tightness and knock it out, reassemble.

I've just suffered the fitout from hell, with Cutless, shaft and other ills; I hope you will do better!

[Polecat]

The circular scoring is not the break - the scoring is for safety wire that goes over the set screw.
The set screw is just on top of the sterntube - the crack runs in an irregular pattern about half way around the tube. The only way I can see that this could of been done would have been the last time the cutless was replaced. If the stern tubes are normally the same diameter or larger all the way thru I was thinking of cutting it and pulling it out forward rather than aft.
jim

[Quetzalsailor]

An adequately engineered puller would put force solely on the interface between Cutless and stern tube, and most likely plus the torque of the wrench as the forcing screw is tightened. And you could control, somewhat, that torque and associated lateral forces.

I would not want to bash at the cutless, even in an undamaged assembly. (I did try a couple blows on mine, just to try my luck. I ended up paying a shop to press it out of the casting.) When I took the Cutless out of the Morgan's strut, I did it at home, in a vise. I cut one longitudinal slice which did not seem to release anything and then cut a parallel slice. Did not release anything, either. Truth be told, I was chary about cutting into the strut so there was a smidge of the Cutless shell remaining uncut. I peeled the intervening strip of shell into the center of the Cutless with a small metalworking chisel. Then the remaining shell came out. I think it would be quite difficult to control cutting w/o damaging the sterntube when you can't see the inside edge of the cut, 4" away in the dark.

I think pushing a Cutless through the stern tube to the inside would be a task requiring more force than pulling it out aft. Each bit of gain outwards results in less force required for the remaining length. Going inwards means you're working ever harder to plow the thing down a dirty tube.

[Tim]

If the stern tubes are normally the same diameter or larger all the way thru I was thinking of cutting it and pulling it out forward rather than aft.

Beware that some boats, old Pearsons included (though not necessarily yours--I don't know) have a two-piece stern tube in which a smaller, inner section is inserted into a larger, outer section, creating a "step" somewhere inside. This would preclude removing the Cutless by pushing/pulling it inwards.

I'm not saying this is the case on your Renegade--just that you ought to find out first.

Unless someone helpfully epoxied your bearing in place, you'll probably find the longitudinal slit, as mentioned above, a pretty easy and effective way to remove the bearing without collateral damage. It works. Usually. But I wouldn't try anything else before attempting the easiest and most logical approach first.

[Polecat]

Thanks for the advice. I'll do the crack repair first then treat it normally - slit & roll to the center. The renegade is coming together but am running out of time. She's a great boat but tends to make you work for it.
jim