Rudder packing "rings"? - Viking motor yacht

89 55´ Viking Motoryacht

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I have a question concerning my ´89 55´ Viking Motoryacht.On the rudder shaft the packing in the packing gland appears to be a solid ring instead of a wrap like on the prop shafts. Is this right? and if so, can I cut it off and replace with wrap, or do I have to get replacement solid rings [and would this require blocking the rudder from below the hull and a removal of all support of the shaft to slip the rings on?]?

Thanks,

Bill
Nashville, TN

As best as I can tell, the rings are fiber, but not like a flax. More like the rings you place under a battery cable terminal, but about a quarter inch thick. There are two of them, and they are saturated with water [yes, they are below the water line]. The rings are solid, in the sense that they are a "ring" and not a loop of packing material.

The two rings are stacked on top of a plate, and are pressed down by another plate that bolts to the bottom plate. The top plate has a cone into which the two rings fit. To improvise, we added a strip of flax above the two rings and screwed the top plate down tight - which reduced the water flow to a seepage.

Viking has no information on these older boats, and no source for these rings. What I'd like to do is remove the rings and use regular graphite packing as I do on my shafts - but I'm hesitant to remove the rings without more information.

Thanks for any assistance.

I'll try to get some photos this weekend. No casting icons seen.

Thanks for the catalog; I don't see any rings in the steering section, but I'll contact them after I get the pics.

We did unbolt the collar, and saw nothing under the collar except the rings. According to the original owner's manual [not detailed at all], there is a fiberglass bushing that surrounds the rudder post extending from the lower plate through the hull. As far as we could tell, that is intact.

FWIW, there was never a large volumne of water, even when we slipped the rings upwards [although the volumne increased when we did]. After the procedure I described above, the water flow slowed to seepage. The other rudder post has no seepage at all, so I still have work to do.

Thanks for all the assistance.

Pascal, that's a good thought; thanks. FYI; Viking didn't have any information for me, but they're waiting for pictures, too.

Here are some pictures. 1, 2, and 3 show the assembly; 4 shows the dieagram from the owner's manual, and 5 is the description of the assembly from the owner's manual. Please let me know if you are able to open the pictures. Thanks.



https://owa.ag.tn.gov/owa/attachmen...XwVWeMTqAAAwvPOgAAAJ&attid0=BAAAAAAA&attcnt=1


https://owa.ag.tn.gov/owa/attachmen...XwVWeMTqAAAwvPOhAAAJ&attid0=BAAAAAAA&attcnt=1


https://owa.ag.tn.gov/owa/attachmen...XwVWeMTqAAAwvPOkAAAJ&attid0=BAAAAAAA&attcnt=1


https://owa.ag.tn.gov/owa/attachmen...XwVWeMTqAAAwvPOiAAAJ&attid0=BAAAAAAA&attcnt=1


https://owa.ag.tn.gov/owa/attachmen...XwVWeMTqAAAwvPOjAAAJ&attid0=BAAAAAAA&attcnt=1

Ok, Ok; so my mechaical skills don't translate to the electric computer!

Actually the drawing is pretty close, just not detailed. The top is a retainng collar. Under the retaining collar is the packing gland that bolts to the sole; inside that packing gland are the two fiber rings that I inquired about. We lifted both the retaining collar and the packing gland to expose the fiber rings [we blocked up the rudder using a jack and the tiller arm]. Since we couldn't remove the fiber rings, we added a layer of packing gland material above the fiber rings - inside the packing gland - and bolted it back down again, which lessened the seepage - so we're on the right track. So the question is, do I need to replace the fiber rings, remove the rings and replace with regular packing gland material, or add more packing gland material on top of the existing rings?

Pascal, I think you have described it correctly and answered Marmont's question: "So the 4 bolts compress that plate which in turn compress the rings against the shaft and housing."

I have sent an inquiry to Lazzara and will post its response.

Dsharp, that's the bottom of the hull.

As to Pascal's question: "I wonder about the safety wire on that bolt... Why is that collar so critical to require a safety wire if the compression and sealing is done with the 4 bolts." It appears that that collar is only to secure the rudder if the tiller arm needed to be removed. Viking says that if it and the tiller arm are removed [which would be the case if I had rings to replace] the rudder would need to be blocked from below. As it is, there are dimples on the shaft corresponding to the bolts in the collar that are safety wired. So, it dosen't appear to be a critical piece, but a redundant one to keep the rudder from falling out.

Thanks to all for your assistance on this one. As Dsharp says: I've spent about 40 years around boats and I have never seen anything like that.

Rec'd the following information from Viking:

It sounds like you want to repack the rudder seals. The rudder must be supported from the out side, the rudder collar (collar with the bolt and lock wire) must be lifted up and off of the ring underneath it. The ring with the hex head bolts must be lifted up and under that ring is where he will find the packing, or what is left of it. Don’t mess with the straight slot bolts at all.

The packing goes between the ring that has the four hex head bolts in it and the plate that has the straight slot bolts. I have no idea where the fiber rings came from. I would go with removing the fiber rings and replacing with fiber packing being sure to stagger the joints where the ends meet.

Nothing recieved yet from Lazzara.

Marmot, that's exactly what we did. We used a screw-type car jack to support the tiller arm and had about 3 inches of space to work with after we lifted the collar and "gland." Since we were unsure about removing the solid rings we just added a layer of regular packing above it to give the "gland" something additional to press agaisnt. As I mentioned before, that slowed the seepage, so now we know what to do going forward.

Thanks for the assistance.