1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Rudder Alignment

With the rudders finally installed for good, next I had to align them. When we moved the boat back in 2009, the rudders weren’t aligned and it was a bear keeping the boat on course.

Rudder aiming jig

I used Harbor Freight clamps to attach some 3″x 48″ scrap 3/4″ plywood to the rudder. I’d cut the plywood using my EZ-One  Smart Table. so the cuts were perfectly straight. On the other side, I used a 48″ aluminum level.

Bosche laser measuring tool makes it a breeze

With my Bosche GLR225 up against the 3/4″ plywood on the port side, the red laser dot on the aluminum level that’s attached to the stbd rudder tells me I’m measuring the right location.

Distance between the fronts

Repeat at the back

Distance between the rears

The measurements are in meters and, because I’m measuring forward and to the rear of the actual leading and trailing edges of the rudders, the toe-in and toe-out are exaggerated. Initially, there was a toe-in condition of ~15mm. The older I get, the more I wish the U.S. had switched to the metric system way back in the 1970s. It’s sooo much easier doing the math.

So…we need some toe-out. I crawled out from under the boat, ran up the ladder, across the aft deck, down into the salon and from there into the aft stateroom, where I pulled the pin on the rudder tie rod so I could adjust it.

Adjusting the tie rod between the rudders

Then…back to the salon, up to the aft deck, down the ladder, and crawl under the boat to take another measurement.

Once more

All that work and all I got was 3mm off the leading edge???

On the trailing edge…getting closer

Once again, up the ladder and back again.

Closer still, but not quite there

And again back and forth…

Finally…

The magic numbers match

With the rudders set at zero toe, next I centered them.

Eyeballing shows they’re pretty close to center

Again, the Bosche GLR225 helps make easy work of it

The laser dot is offset on the prop hub

But the laser tells a different story farther away

At the shaft log, where the prop shaft enters the hull, the laser dot is inboard, toward the center of the shaft. This means the rudders are pointed slightly off center. If the boat was running, she’d be turning slightly to port. Calling for the missus to turn the helm to stbd, we centered the rudders in no time. And that’s a wrap for the rudders.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Demise of the Evil Helm Windshield Frames

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Install of the Rudders

Way back in 2009, I cut the old rudders out of the boat and had a new set of stainless rudders fabricated. I spec’d the new ones to use delrin bushings to isolate the stainless from the aluminum, since dissimilar metal corrosion can be a problem and aluminum loses out to just about everything. In retrospect, I probably should have just used plain steel  with a grease fitting, similar to the original design, because plain  steel and aluminum are far more compatible than aluminum and stainless. The biggest problem with the original design was having a bronze gland nut threaded onto the aluminum shaft log, through which the steel ran. As I explained in the previous article, the whole shebang turned into unimetal during years of no maintenance.

Fast forward to 2013, and I had to remove the rudders when we were installing the new shafts and strut barrels. That was when I realized that the fabricator (who I’ve long since fired from the refit) decided to use HDPE instead of delrin for the bushings. HDPE, being a somewhat softer material, didn’t quite bond with the epoxy barrier coat, and there was a breach in the coating. That started a bit of aluminum oxide growth, which put a bit of a squeeze on the bushing. When I tried to reinstall the rudders after doing the final shaft installation (as well as the propellers) one of the rudders just wouldn’t go in without gouging into the relatively soft HDPE, pushing a mound of the material in front of the rudder shaft and bringing it to a halt.

Sooooo, I drove out the “new” bushings and ordered up a set of new-new ones, this time relying on Glide Bearings. The installation was the same, bedding the bushings in Devoe Coatings epoxy, which seemed to stick to the Glide material as well as it does to aluminum.

Harbor Freight port-a-power helped push out the old-new bushing

Aluminum oxide in the shaft log

It really didn’t take much oxide between the log and bushing to squeeze the HDPE  to the point that the shaft wouldn’t go back into place.

First, clean the shaft log of Al2O3

Flue brushes work well to clean the inside of aluminum pipe that’s used for all of the shaft logs and thru-hulls on these boats. They use a standard fitting that you can attach to extensions that fit in a 1/2″ drill chuck. The syringe next to the hole in the pic above is for applying the Alumiprep and Alodine solutions.

Alumiprep helps dissolve the aluminum oxide in and on the shaft log

Bright aluminum, treated with Alodine conversion coating and ready for epoxy

The epoxy that remained on the exterior is very well adhered to the aluminum, so I’m leaving it in place. I scuffed it with an abrasive pad when I applied Alumiprep and Alodine to the log, so it’s ready for coating.

Glide Bearings’ bushing w/o-ring grooves

Glide machined grooves for o-rings that will, in theory, serve two purposes: 1) keep the epoxy from dripping out the bottom when I installed them and 2) should the epoxy seal fail, the o-rings may keep water out of the space between the bushing and the log tube. The Glide material is much, much harder than the HDPE bushings were.

Rudder bushing “floated” in on Devoe Epoxy

It wasn’t until I saw these pix on the computer that I realized how heavy I’d laid it on. No problem, though. That ring of epoxy near the top should help ensure the hose seals!

Next day: removing the tape

Cleaned up with a sharp utility knife

Rudder slid home

New packing box installed with locking collar

I applied anti-sieze to the threads so the packing will be easy to adjust when the time comes.

Hydraulic steering & rudder installation just about done on the inside

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Rudder Alignment

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Hydraulic Steering II

The hydraulic steering install took more time than I anticipated for a couple of reasons. First, the thieves cleaned me out in May 2014, which was right in the middle of the hydraulic line install. I spent the better part of two months dealing with insurance companies and installing all sorts of alarms and streaming cameras on the boat. Second, the Vetus steering pump and ram I bought at the Dania Flea Market a few years ago turned out to be metric.

I know…what the heck was I thinking?!?!?

The 3/8″ stainless tubing I bought for the hydraulic lines worked out really well, as did all of the tube clamps I got from Dell City. This stuff had all been sitting in boxes in my garage, awaiting the final installation in the boat. But when it came to actually putting it in, problems popped up like lawn mushrooms in autumn.

We’ve all used 10mm wrenches on 3/8″ bolts in a pinch, right? The difference between the two isn’t much: 3/8″  = 0.375″, while 10mm = 0.394 inches. I’ve even used SAE wrenches on ancient, worn out, metric bolts, and vice versa, and the fit has been better than a proper wrench. But when it comes to hydraulic lines, ten-thousandths matter and tens of thousandths is a gap through which rivers of oil can run. So, once I got past the insurance forms and started replacing essential tools, like my Swagelok tubing bender, the next step was to figure out a way to connect the metric Vetus hardware to the tubing.

Vetus pump to 10mm copper tubing to Swagelok connector to 3/8″ stainless

The shot above is the back-side of the helm station. The Vetus pump is bolted to the aluminum plate, which is screwed to the 3/4″ plywood that’s screwed to the helm bulkhead. I first considered swapping out the metric Vetus tubing ferrules and nuts, but it turns out that they use a funky British standard thread that’s close to SAE but not interchangeable. So, I found some 10mm copper tubing on British ebay and, fortunately, Swagelok makes adapters for just about every hydraulic connection imaginable. I set up a search on ebay, and within a month the Swageloks came up at a good price.

Original helm wheel hanging on a Vetus helm pump

Eventually, I’ll re-skin the helm bulkhead with new veneer and make a mahogany cover for the pump. But that doesn’t have to happen before the boat goes in the water.

ER bulkhead with hydraulic and fuel supply and return lines fitted.

Steering and fuel lines are cut, bent, and loosely fitted

While the tank was out, I decided to install some chases to the stern

Rather than running all of the wires around the perimeter of the aft cabin, I decided to run them straight out under the tank. Chris Craft did that with the original wiring, but they just used loom clamps screwed to the framing. These boats originally came with “Ozzie and Harriet” bunks on either side, so there was tons of room under the center flooring that all vanished when I converted to a centerline fuel tanks.

I had some leftover 1-1/2″ PVC that I used to frame out Tent Model IX, so I used it for wiring chases to the transom.  The pinkish paint is actually from the same cans of Devoe 235 epoxy that I used to coat the bilge spaces after the boat was sandblasted inside and out. With the passage of time, the catalyst has changed color and tints the coating. I figure that since it’s out of sight and doesn’t affect other properties of the coating, I don’t care. It does look goofy, though.

Hydraulic lines and wire chases…CHECK!

Fwd hydraulic and fuel lines are in place, but loose so they can be rotated out of the way of the fuel tank as it goes back into place.

Original stern wiring runs through the stbd chase to the transom. The other chase is…just in case.

The 420 gallon fuel tank goes back into its cradle

“Getting Egyptian”

Those bits and pieces of 1-1/2″ PVC pipe have been invaluable when moving big, heavy stuff, like my Miller Trailblazer 280 and compressor when I reconfigured Tent Model X.

Closed up “for good” 8/11/14

Fuel lines rotated to their (eventually) final location.

I still have to fill the hydraulics and bleed the system, but first I’ve got to get the rudders reinstalled. Before I can do that, I need to get the props in. And before I can do that….the list goes on!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Another Cool Tool

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Hydraulic Steering

It’s been a while since I posted an article. The theft in May 2014 knocked the wind out of my sails…no…that’s just plain wrong…the theft seriously restricted the air intake to my 450hp Cummins turbodiesels, and getting back up to speed has been difficult. The project didn’t stop entirely, but it’s been difficult to get things done. Every job needs a particular tool, and it’s the tools I rarely used that went missing that have proven to be the biggest hangups this summer.

Anyway, like many of the late 1960’s Chris Craft cruisers, our Roamer 46 came with mechanical steering.  When we first got the boat, the rudders were locked up solid and somebody had tried to use the big ship’s wheel to break them loose. All they ended up doing, though, was breaking the steering gear. I planned to install hydraulic steering since the refit began, and I finally started putting it together in the summer of 2014.

First, I made support tabs out of aluminum angle and attached them to the frames under the aft stateroom floor.

I made platforms for the hydraulic and fuel lines, and installed them on the tabs.

Next, the fuel tank had to come out. I’d forgotten how heavy that thing was!

After installing the platforms, the hydraulic lines went in easily enough.

I left the tubing long, as shown in the pic above, because the aft end of the tubing cannot move. It’s at the perfect angle, so when the hydraulic hose is attached to the tubing and the steering ram, the tubing is in its natural, at-rest position. If it moves, resistance to bending from the hose will induce stress into the tubing and could eventually lead to cracking. I need to permanently attach the other end of the tubing under the aft stateroom floor to the engine room bulkhead, then splice the fore and aft tubes together using Swageloks. The fit is very precise, which is why both ends need to be fixed before making the joints in the middle.

Complex bends at the end of the hydraulic lines.

Swagelok fittings: first, tighten the nut by hand and mark them 450 degrees apart.

Next, tighten the nut until the marks line up. Done!

Finally fitting up the hydraulic ram!

Next, a Swagelok bender is essential for bending annealed stainless tubing. This is the engine room-side hydraulic steering tubing (3/8″), with a Swagelok bulkhead fitting attached.

By the way, I went with stainless tubing to avoid corrosion on this aluminum boat. When we sandblasted the hull inside, there was corrosion under all of the copper fuel and water supply lines from copper oxide that had dripped or otherwise fallen off of the tubes. It only takes a bit of copper to do serious damage to aluminum, but I felt that metal lines were preferable to nylon or hose. So…stainless it is!

1/2″ stainless tubing is for the fuel supply.

ER bulkhead with hydraulic and fuel supply and return lines fitted.

The big round hole was from the central AC/heater ducting that was installed when we got the boat back in late 2007. I plan to close that hole up when I’m done with the major mechanical & electrical work.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Hydraulic Steering II