Reply to :: Catamaran Sailboats at TheBeachcats.com

Welcome anonymous guest

Please Support
TheBeachcats.com

Forums index page

Reply to: Dolphin striker rod loose

Message body

[quote=Andinista]Unexpected findings after inspecting the dolphin striker:
I removed the nuts of the DS bar and the bolts are sticked to the beam, my hand doesn’t fit inside the beam to do much more, I would need to extend the wrench somehow. Maybe next time. Other than that, they seem solid, without visible signs of corrosion. I tightened them back. 
The holes on the beam for the rod are about the diameter of the compression tube, so what happened was that the upper nut was loose and the compression tube’s upper edge was below the beam hole, so the rod had room to play laterally. When tightening the upper nut the compression tube fits in the hole and the rod doesn’t move anymore. The hole is ok, with all it’s thickness, I wouldn’t say that it grew because of corrosion. Maybe the previous owner decided to insert the compression tube from there?
The big problem is that the compression tube is stuck to the rod, I tried to move it by tightening the upper and lower nuts separately, with the other nut loose, without success. If I tighten both again the DS tension is about enough, I’d like some more prebend but can’t get it. Next thing I’ll try is to hammer the rod from the bottom to see if it comes out, not quite sure. I tried once but couldn’t. I’ll try starting with the upper nut tightened, to have the tube aligned with the hole. Otherwise I don’t know how I will replace the rod and tube when needed.[/quote]

No HTML tags allowed (except inside [code][/code] tags)