Auto Helm

Hello Trawler Friends!

As usual, I’m working on something and discover another issue in the process. Or is it an issue at all? I’m dropping my rudder post and in the process of disconnecting the auto helm sensor to my rudder post arm. I loosened one of the screws thinking there was two screws holding it on to the bronze arm. No. Just one screw and possibly 5200 holding it in place. I’m wondering if this was done to prevent having to drill another screw into the arm to prevent a possible failure point or is this just shoddy maintenance?

What's that white stuff?

I’m assuming it’s 5200 no? There was one screw holding it in, and that’s what you see in the picture. The white stuff was the adhesive. You can see below the other screw what appears to almost be a whole, but it’s really not A hole for the other screw.

Hole*

Lazy installer. If they wanted to avoid drilling a second hole they would have made an adapter plate to go between the two.

Rudder position indicator? No load there so a very small screw could/should be added,
6-32 would do it and continuing to use the existing so any additional weakness will be minimal from the added screw.
Unless of course that , dimple?? showing is already a hole. Then use it with an appropriate size screw.

Yeah, lazy installer.

Yeah, sloppy install...just drill another hole..

That’s what I thought. Maybe all they had was a hand drill and they got tired. [emoji19]

or broke a bit. An extra hour to the install at $100 that owners whine about.

could always hose clamp it on.... not like it is a pacemaker or equal....

I’ll just drill it. I do everything myself. At $100/HR it didn’t take me long to figure out that I had better use my 20 years of Navy aviation maintenance skills. Lol. Working with planes, I prevent things from falling out of the sky. Working on boats, I prevent things from sinking. There’s a very high incentive to prevent the latter since it’s my boat. Not to say I didn’t use the same attention to detail before retired.

Quick fix would be a hose clamp, but I would just drill a new hole.

Dropped the rudder and took everything apart, so I‘ll just drill a hole.

Honestly, a dab of 5200 and a bolt/nut screwed down tight and you are good for another 10 years, if you are feeling lazy. LOL

It may be a minor point...but in post #7, the two screws are in line with the control arm.....in the OP photo, they are perpendicular.