[Hush34]

Today, I continued work on Hush and started to knock out what I thought was going to be a breeze. I wanted to take the binnacle guard apart and repaint the guard table. Seemed easy. NOPE! Seems the PO (previous owner) loved the boat but didn't love to do preventative maintenance. I took the compass off with relative ease only to get to the throttle housing where four very menacing screws reside. They did not want to budge. WD 40...impact hammer, heat, nothing. Guess they didn't have anti-seize or lanacote back in the day. Anyway, I have this question? Should I continue to try and break the screws loose so I can take the pedestal table off for refab or should I simply button the whole mess back up and call it a day. If I break something, I will have to spend $1000 plus to get an edson pedestal.

p.s. I have a Merriman (out of business) steering pedestal.

p.p.s. Use anti-seize people, it will save you in the end. Whew!

p.p.p.s If you have any ideas how to break stainless fasteners from aluminum I would love to hear them.

 

[Hush34]

Those were my thoughts. Failure at sea cannot fix it then. I think I can access the cables enough to swap out if necessary. Not sure. More to investigate in the mean time blaster a day to keep the corrosion away. Will let you know how it progresses. Thanks for the thoughtful input.

 

[Hush34]

I have followed the advice of the PB Blaster crowd. I sprayed the fasteners liberally with this stuff and followed the instructions about tapping. Will be gone for a week. When I get back the impact driver will be going to work.

Of note...the heads of the screws seem to torque under load but that torque is dissipated by the length of the screw and not much seems to get to the threaded portion down the shaft.

If this doesn't work, I will be taking a cobalt drill bit to the heads to remove. I am sure I can get the screws out if I can just get some torque to the lower part of the shaft.

The binnacle is staying, the screws are going...

p.s. I decided I could not simply button this problem up because of the likely potential of cable failure and not being able to correct. We are leaving in January to start our voyaging. Thanks for all the input.

 

[Hush34]

I will keep your offer in mind. Though I would likely go with an Edson if I had to change binnacles, or I would convert to tiller like yourself. Thanks for your help...hope to see you on the water some day.

 

[Hush34]

Definitely not pot metal. I have seen the use of pot metals on boats by not pot metal fasteners