Dart 15 Forums

Oh dear,
Are you saying that the whole bush is stuck inside the rudder blade? Generally the stainless steel bolt seizes inside the bush by corrosion but once they are sawn and removed from the A frame the aluminium bush and the remains of the bolt come out of the rudder blade a treat. There is a plastic coating on the outside of the bush which is the bearing surface.
Rudder blades are expensive. If you are not confident to drill out the bush, etc. time to call in an expert (try Brian Phipps or Steve Sawford).
Make sure to only use the plastic bush & washers from Windsport when you reassemble.
Cheers
Bob
PS Where is Bigbury Bay???

David,

I used to think that the rudders rotated up and down by pivoting round the stainless steel bolt. Bob Carter says that the rudder rotates between the aluminium sleeve and the nylon outer (both is his current response and somewhere else on Chat pages).

I'd try using some silicone lubricant, and putting ice cubes on the aluminium to try to shrink the aluminium to free up the gap to the nylon outer.

When using force, support the rudder blade around the axis point, or you may damage the hole in the rudder blade itself - maybe requiring some delicate glass fibre repairs to keep the rudders "square". A press would be preferable to hammer blows!

When I found I had a seizure between the aluminium and nylon sleeves, I eventually drilled through the nylon sleeve right next to the aluminium sleeve from one side to the other (in fact from either side because small drills just aren't long enough!) and then used a coping saw (with difficulty - I had to use just the saw blade in places!) to cut round most of the nylon before I could knock out the inner debris with what I judged would not be excessive force. The remains of the nylon outer were then comparatively easy to remove and replace.

The nylon outer sleeve has 3 circumference projecting rings - 2 narrow ones on either side and 1 larger in the middle - which fit into grooves in the rudder blade. The nylon outer sleeve should be inserted with a small amount of guey substance to stop it rotating in the rudder blade (I think I got this from Brian Phipps, or Steve Sawford, or maybe from searching the Chat pages or from a Tips article).

I hope this provides some help.

Hi If all fails and the outer bush that is bonded into the blade comes out as well, you can buy those to from the windsport catparts website. You will need to bond the outer bush in place with some epoxy or similar , then you are off.
Brian
Windsport catparts.