Carver Owners Forum

Hi All. I have been cleaning up the aft section of the engine space and found my way back to the rudder area. Both rudders leak with stbd leaking more. Cannot see any adjustment so assume they are supposed to be dripless, that maybe have reached end of life. Has anyone changed these and where did they find the seals please. I also had a broken rudder angle indicator and replaced it with the suggested replacement, gages still do not read correctly. Unfortunately I threw out the old sending unit (which had a broken arm) before testing what it actually had for resistance readings. New sending unit is for dual gage station and reads correct resistance. Anyone had past experience with this issue.
Thanks very much for your assistance.
Pat

Hello. I can speak to the seal situation. I changed my Portside Rudder seal a few years ago. The black plastic collar that you see which contains the seal, actually threads out of the boat. I purchased a new complete collar with seal and changed the entire thing out. It's been too long now but I do remember calling Carver and they gave me a third party company to contact Who provided the part. Suggestion, buy some Barnacle Buster and pour it on top of the seal and let it sit for a few hours. Periodically turn the steering wheel from lock-to-lock. I did this on my starboard side and cured the slow leak. Rinse it off with freshwater thoroughly when you are done. You may get lucky and fix the problem. Dave

If it's the type you unscrew the bearing and seal assembly, it's a Tides Marine unit. Se if the one in the link looks like yours. It's been years since I've done it but pretty sure you can replace just the lip seal on those. Dave is correct in that if the area where the seal contacts the shaft is dirty or has hard water scaling, marine debris, sand etc. it will leak without it actually being a bad seal.

https://www.tidesmarine.com/rudder/rpbd_overview.php

Bingo Viper, that looks like the one. I'm assuming Pat's 98 would be the same as mine. Sidenote Viper, I'm getting the private messages as well. Not the first time that's happened either, looks like there may be an issue with the private messaging on the site. Dave

Alaska 530 Voyager wrote:Source of the post..... Sidenote Viper, I'm getting the private messages as well....

Weird. I'm assuming it'll get remedied soon as I'm pretty sure the administrators know about it already given that it's being addressed to them too.

Thanks very much Viper and Alaska 530. I will try the barnacle buster next week. It does indeed look like the Tides unit. It seems it is far enough below the water line to require a haulout but at least it can be a short haul instead of having to be blocked. Really appreciate the assitance. Pat