Rudder Support Bracket Replacement

One poor and short-sighted engineering decisions Jeanneau made is to make certain important components from carbon steel and not provide any rust proofing, instead of using stainless steel, or rustproofing.

Two of the most glaring issues are with the upper rudder bearing support bracket and the keel bolts and nuts (more on that later). There are a number of posts online from Jeanneau SO 45.1 and 45.2 owners complaining about their ridder bracket becoming dangerously rusty. The bracket has large flat horizontal surface, which prevents it from completely draining, which is causing severe corrosion.

As you can see from the photos, the bracket was definitely on its last leg.

The upper rudder support bracket is located between the twin helms (between the helm seats, right in front of the transom gate), about 7-8 inches under the deck. The bracket is H-shaped, about 40" tall and 20" wide and is accessible through the deck hatch in front of the transom gate.

After speaking to a number of fabrication shops and boatyards in San Diego I could not get a firm quote, so I ended up ordering the part from Jeanneau USA. Getting in touch with Jeanneau is a challenge in itself, finally I was able to get some help from Gilles Rigaux in Annapolis, MD.

The part was $540 (including shipping via UPS) and took about two months to arrive, it was a custom order part, not available on stock so had to be manufactured. The replacement took about 4-5 hours with two people - one was a diver, who helped hold the rudder itself while the bracket was removed. The rudder itself has negative buoyancy, so once there is no support holding it at the top it will begin to sink and has to be held in place.

The replacement itself was relatively straightforward, short of the need for different wrenches and hammers. First, we removed the bolt holding the rudder post in the top bearing. The bearing itself is made from plastic (probably Delrin) in a rubber sleeve.

Next, remove the four bolts holding the "H" on both sides and carefully lower the rudder post. The rudder post has to be tied and preferably a diver has to assist by holding the rudder itself. At that point the rudder bracket can be removed from underneath the deck.

We decided to carefully cut the bracket with electric metal saw to remove the bearing. Once the bearing was out of the old bracket we cleaned it up, greased it well and carefully hammered it in the new one with a rubber hammer. The new bracket was easy to install, we replaced the mounting bolts as well, pushed the rudder up through the bearing and installed the bolt holding the top of the rudder post.

All done, without having to haul the boat out, which would have been more money than everything spent so far on the project.