OK, with all your help and encouragement, I pulled the rudder off Siempre Sabado (W28) today. All went well. Only had 2 of the carriage bolts spin but a pair of Vise-Grips put a quick end to that.
So here's what I found:
My bronze pintles show a little wear but not really excessive. The pintles are 1" diameter and the smallest diameter I found on any of them on the area inside the gudgeon was 0.975". More typically, the worn diameter was between 0.990" and 0.995".
The gudgeons, on the other hand, showed considerable wear. All were out of round. Side to side diameters were between 1.03" and 1.05". Front to back diameters were 1.02" to 1.04".
My thought is to remove the gudgeons and take them to a machine shop where I can get the holes bored out to some uniform number that leaves them all the same size and round again. Then have some sleeves made up that will bring the inside diameter back to 1.00" and then reuse my gudgeons.
My question is: what should the sleeves be made of?
Bronze? Going to be really tough to find down here in Mexico.
Stainless Steel? But what about electrolysis?
Other ideas? The gudgeons are in good shape otherwise and I really don't want to have to make new ones.
-Steve
