Transmission Reassembly - Done!

Below are all the drive components cleaned after lapping the drive cone and the gears.  They are ready for reassembly.

The assembly of drive components was done restoring the assembly in the same order they were removed.  The pieces that were press fit were driven on using an over-sized socket around the shaft and a rubber mallet.  Below the assembly is held using the drive flange in a vice, and the end bolt torqued to 70 ft-lbs.

Once all the pieces were fit back together, they were coated with SAE 30 oil and inserted into the transmission case.  The shaft on the right side has an o-ring on the far side and is pressed into the transmission case.  This has to be assembled with all the shafts at the same time, or the gears interfere with each other if done one at a time.  There is soft setting gasket sealer applied to the flange that mates with the bell housing.  This joint must seal the oil inside the case.

The external parts that were rusted have been cleaned and primed with Rustoleum primer.  These include the transmission input and output flanges, shift lever, and I decided to paint the flexible coupling just so it matches the other stuff.  The flexible coupling is not stock on the J/30.  It was added to help reduce vibration transmitted through the shaft.

Here is the finished transmission with fresh Yanmar Gray paint on the aft end.  I also replaced the label by the shift lever to mark forward and reverse directions.  The transmission will be filled with 0.25 liters of SAE 30 oil and put on the shelf until spring, or at least a warm day when I don't need to shovel snow to get into the boat.

Transmission Disassembly & Clutch Resurface

The transmission main drive shaft was setup in a vice and a bearing puller used so that the gears and bearings could be removed. The inside of the gear is the mating surface for the conical clutch.














This picture below shows the top gear removed and one surface of the conical clutch. The clutch face has concentric rings that are about 1/32" wide. These are what mate with the inside surface of the drive gear.















Below is one of the drive gears that has the inside surface shown. This becomes a highly polished glazed surface caused by the clutch rubbing against it. I've used fine emery cloth to remove the glaze. This is all done just by rubbing the emery cloth across the surface by hand.














The picture below attempts to show one gear with the glazed surface on the right, and a gear that has been lapped with emery cloth to remove the glaze on the left.














I've kept all the pieces laid out the same way they came apart. This should help get them back together correctly.

Winter Work 2009-2010 - Rudder and Transmission

It's been a while since I posted on the blog. This fall, I noticed some blisters returned on the stbd side when the boat was hauled. I believe these are residual effects of the old glass I left there on the outer skin after the core was replaced last year. I'm just grinding out the blisters, and will fair and barrier coat.




























Last summer Rhapsody was on Block Island and had some significant transom and rudder damage when the piling we were tied up to broke off during a storm. This was documented in a post on the J/30 Forum along with some photos. The new rudder was installed for the J/30 NAs in September, but I didn't have a chance to really prepare it properly. The upper holes needed to be epoxy isolated with a stainless sleeve.

The 1st photo shows over-drilling the holes to accept the sleeve.














Once the holes were drilled and countersunk, I taped the edges and mixed West Systems Epoxy to coat the holes. The sleeves were then lightly tapped in place. Colloidal silica was added to the epoxy to make a paste so the area around the stainless sleeves by the countersunk area could be filled.















Next I needed to put on the gel coat stripe to match the waterline. I used fine line masking tape and created a mask for the stripe all around the rudder. The adjacent area was masked with wax paper. In the photo below, you can see the old rudder that was patched on the floor, with the new rudder standing upright. My basement is about 50 degrees since it is 20 degrees outside. I have a space heater warming the area so that when the gel coat is sprayed it will kick.















The rudder was sprayed with gelcoat using a preval sprayer. First I mixed the gel coat using pure white base, then gradually adding blue color to match the old gel coat. Once the color matched, I mixed about 1 ounce with hardner and thinned it 30% with Acetone. The Gel coat is the type with wax in it. I removed the filter in the pickup tube on the Preval sprayer because I have found in the past, gel coat clogs this. The photo below shows the result of spraying. There is some orange peel that I'll need to wet sand out. I also ended up using a heat gun to make the Gel coat kick, as the space heater just wasn't keeping the area warm enough.















Below is the stripe with the masking removed. Next weekend, I'll do the wet sanding and mount the rudder hardware.














Below is the transmission with the shift lever removed. The casing is being separated from the bell housing. This work is just to reface the conical clutch to make the transmission go into gear better when it is warmed up. It works fine when cold, but chatters when warm.














Here's a view inside the case with the drive gears . I need to get a 1-3/16" socket to remove the retaining nut. It's on my list of things to pick up. More next weekend.