Chrysler Sailors Forum

I pulled the keel out of the boat by cutting the pin because of all the rusted parts and when I drove the old keel pin out there was a plastic sleeve left behind. Is this normal, is there something that can be used to replace it or should I just take care not to damage it and reuse it?

Gotta love that ol rusty stuff under there!

I had my keel sandbalsted before the smoothing out process with Marine Tex. I drilled out my keel pin hole to 1" and made a new sleeve with Delrin. The old one was wobbling in there! The sleeve was epoxied in place and sanded smooth.

When I put it all back together I made some 12 inch circles from UHMW, drilled a keel pin hole in the middle with some slots cut to slip it on after putting the keel back on. These were thick enough to take up any slack between the keel and the keel trunk, 3/16" on my boat, and extend well past the brackets. They prevent any banging and hopefully keep the keel pin snug in it's new sleeve. So far it's worked well and is very quiet.

You can see them on my site here:
http://naturalbornflyerz.com/chrysler_2 ... ations.htm

Sounds like you'll have better luck with the brackets!

Billy

PS Have a buddy who is into RC planes. He had a C-182 float plane with a 5' wingspan. It was huge. Was really nice 'till he botched the landing in water and busted it all up...

"PS Have a buddy who is into RC planes. He had a C-182 float plane with a 5' wingspan. It was huge. Was really nice 'till he botched the landing in water and busted it all up..."

Yeah unless you have money to burn you better love building and repairing them just as much as flying them or your not going to enjoy it much. I've brought home some pretty well destroyed aircraft and in a week or two you could not tell they ever hit the ground. I taught myself to fly so the school of hard knocks taught me well.

Your project seems to be coming along well, hopefully in a few months mine will start to shape up as nice as yours. I had room to drop my keel while on the trailer, the previous owner had it jacked up pretty high, but I used the same grinder/sawzall method to get it out. I had considered taking some action to deal with possible side to side slop but I think I'll wait until I hit the water the first time to see how it does. I was thinking along the lines of some neopreme washers, of course that won't help if there is any play on the vertical axis because of a loose pin.