Well, I finally finished the servicing and upgrade to Touche's steering system. Listers may recall this started in January and was interrupted by my month long Colorado ski trip.
In summary, to my knowledge, Touche's steering system had never had a major maintenance session. I pulled the pedestal, cables, sheaves, etc. for inspection and lubrication. That's when I found a poor design issue with the system. There were two small bolts installed in the last link on either side of the chain. At full turn of the rudder, these bolts contacted the teeth in the pedestal's sprocket acting as a rudder stop. Over time, the bolts had a deleterious effect on the sprocket. I would recommend to owners of earlier 35's, and any other older models which may have the bolts in the chain, that they inspect the sprocket in their pedestal. I also found a broken strand on one of the steering cables. This break may also have been related to the design issue. About halfway through the build run of the 35-1's, C&C radically changed the rudder stop design by adding a bulkhead aft of the rudder and attaching two aluminum plates to the quadrant which contacted the bulkhead at full travel. I decided to mimic the newer design, eliminating the bolts in the chain. I can tell you that it is quite a project, not to be taken casually. I did document the project fairly well. The link to the project document is: https://drive.google.com/open?id=115qLR3c13N2THCRpsOF-7UGGJBweFXfd If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me. Dennis C. Touche' 35-1 #83 Mandeville, LA
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