| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Hendrickson Rating: |
Today my rusty keel nuts and flat washers are being replaced with stainless steel ones. Due to the size of the crack in the fairing of the keel-to-hull joint that developed just in the last half of last summer, the marina service manager recommended checking the tightness of the keel nuts with a torque wrench and I, fed up with the speed of rusting since my de-rusting/paint treatment last year, said "change 'em." My keel "bolts" are stainless. With hull #094, I have the newer pattern of keel bolts. There are 7 keel bolts. Moving forward from the aft end, you see a 3/4 inch bolt, then another one, then two of them side by side. Next, down in the first square opening in the mast step "floor" is a one inch bolt, in the middle square opening is a second one inch bolt, and finally a 3/4 inch bolt in the forward-most small square opening. That forward-most bolt has a slathering of epoxy resin all over its washers and hex nut, so that you can't begin to get a socket down onto it without beauqoo chipping away. The yard technician said he can get it cleaned up and out without tearing up the mast step, but it'll cost a lot of time. I said forget that one, it behaves like it's tight. After three hours the remaining six keel nuts were off (my boat is still on the hard), and S2 had used two ferric flat washers on each bolt, each of which required chipping resin etc. with a wood chisel to free up and out. The guy working on my boat had a 1 inch socket with a length that allowed it to fit onto the hex nuts even though they are a little off-center in the square opening, and he was able to do the job without grinding away part of my mast step/floor or its tabbing. My surveyor stopped in about that time and said "I can't believe it -- sounds like they used 5200 and resin to bed the washers, as well as the normal overcoating with bilge paint to finish." There was no rusting on the keel bolts (actually they're threaded rod embedded into the keel when it was poured), as they are stainless. Actually I'm told that what sometimes happens is that the boat owner notices that water is leaking into the bolt around some of his keel bolts. Instead of fixing it right and removing & rebedding his washers and then tightening things up, he takes an easy way out and just pours goop or resin all around the bolts. Two SS washers are being used on each stud, as originally built. My surveyor suggests bedding them using 4200 (not 5200), and use Loctite 270 on the stud threads to keep the new SS nuts from backing off. Tighten to specs with a torque wrench. |
