Fiberglass strut lateral movement

[David N.]

I put a rebuilt 1gm10 in, drive saver, new mounts, new shaft seal and cutlass bearing. All good, but I don't like that I have a little bit of lateral movement in the strut. Maybe 1/8th" each way. It's been that way for a bit, and I put over 50 hrs on it without issue. But, I want to address it.

Flange is solid, so I'm looking at where the strut meets the flange. I'm pretty sure it's been repaired before.

This is on a J/92. Anyone know if the strut has some sort of steel insert? Or is it all glass?

I'm having a fiberglass guy look at it, and I have some experience as well. I think it can be repaired in situ. i sure hope so.

Open for comments. Not sure how much more I should grind out before glassing back in.

 

[Zonker]

The strut fibers don't really seem to connect to the base mounting flange. Well maybe the under layers do but I could see 3 layers of cloth that are not connected. This is not inherently a stiff connection and using glass is not very stiff either.

I built a carbon uni strut that was bonded into lateral brackets inside the hull on my catamaran and it was very stiff. So you could do this if this strut has broken connections.

If I was just going to stiffen it up I'd lay 4+ layers of ~9 oz e-glass uni from the edge of the flange down the strut several inches (grind off paint beforehand etc). And a big thickened epoxy fillet at the junction. No sharp corners.

 

[Will1073]

That looks like a bronze strut wrapped in glass….?

 

[F_L]

That looks like a bronze strut wrapped in glass….?

That's a fiberglass strut. I've repaired one on a J92 after a line fouled the prop. Actually repaired that strut twice for the same reason. I joked with the owner about keeping a spare prop shaft in stock for him. Zonker has the right idea to stiffen it up.

 

[Crash]

What Zonk said. Epoxy fillet first. Structural not fairing filler.