Cutlass bearing removal

REPLACING THE CUTLASS BEARING FROM A KEEL MOUNTED SHAFT LOG

By Ralph Levitt, Skipper of Island Packet 31 (#116) “Second Love”



Of all the jobs in maintaining a sailboat with an inboard engine, decoupling the prop shaft from the motor has to be one of the toughest. I found that out last year when I had to do just that in order to replace a dripless stuffing box on my 15 year old full keel Island Packet 31 sloop. So last season, when indications were that the cutlass bearing was failing I was full of trepidations. Once the boat came out of the water last fall for winter storage, it became clear that the cutlass bearing had indeed failed – the rubber bushing was almost completely gone - and would have to be replaced before the boat was launched again the following spring. The boatyard informed me that to do that they “simply” pull the shaft, which in my case would involve having to drop the rudder. And the whole job could come to many hundreds of $$. As in most full keel boats, the prop shaft exits the keel through a “shaft log” which houses the cutlass bearing. The factory service department suggested that if I could remove the shaft log and then extract the cutlass bearing, I should not have to remove the shaft. However, the shaft log is securely glued and through bolted onto the outside of the aft end of the keel. The bolts, in turn, are retained with lock nuts inside the aft end of the keel, which, for me, were totally impossible to reach. Not wanting to have to drop the rudder, a not-to-simple job in the first place, in addition to having to decouple the shaft from the motor again, I had to come up with some other solution.



For the full details of how I was able to pull the cutlass bearing out the shaft log and off the prop shaft once the prop and the retaining setscrews were removed e-mail me at: [email protected].