We finally got on at eleven o'clock, sharing the dock with Oak, which had been showing a tendency to turn left at every opportunity, not that any obvious reason could be found when she was high and dry.
The old prop was very reluctant to come off, and took around an hour's heating, hammering and levering until the bind on the taper just suddenly gave, as they do. By now, it was lunchtime, so we all adjourned in various directions. Sheila and I had a very pleasant half hour outside the Willow Tree with Helen and Lloyd off Alice. I can recommend the ham panini, and the brie and cranberry one looked pretty good too.
The new prop was soon fitted, and a new hole drilled, with a bit of hassle, to take the split pin. Then the dock was refilled, and a new struggle began to release the propshaft from the Centaflex coupling. The new prop has a different boss, and was now an inch or so too far astern.
The Centaflex bolts decided not to co-operate, nor the collet to split readily, so it took Ian and Lyndon a good half hour's A-level muttering to get it free. Once done, tweaking the prop in a bit was easy, of course.
Sanity Again is now much quieter to steer, and responds to the helm that bit more positively; she went back into her berth very readily. There's a lot more metal in the Crowther prop, so hopefully it will be a while before we're looking at it again.
Some photos to finish:
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| Heating the old prop |
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| Bent blade |
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| Bent tip |
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| Not a good shape |
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| New prop in place |
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| Refilling the dock |
I see what you mean about the old prop Bruce,it certainly looks like it has been well used. Did you say you would have it refurbished as a spare or is it metal skip fodder?
ReplyDeleteNew prop looks good
Trev Jones
Wow, that is some distortion Bruce, no wonder it was a bit rough in use. Mine had nothing like that amount of distortion and it was too rough for use. I strongly suspect that your worries about the amount of metal involved in the casting will turn out to be correct. I know that any prop can be made to be sing-free so the logic behind the choice of prop eludes me I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteRoger
Hi Both
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, Ian at Aqua said that if this was one of their hire boat props they would just bash it straight and carry on.
AIUI, they fit a new Aquafax prop to most of their boats each year!
I agree, Braidbar ought at least to be offering the option of a better prop, I think the Aquafax is a false economy. Couldn't show it in the photos, Rog, but the new prop had been ground off around the tip and down the trailing edge in much the same way you described the Jooren props.
It didn't sing at all on the way back to the pontoon, but of course time will tell once we are out on shallower waters.
Cheers
Bruce