FreedomYachts.org

Does the Freedom 39 Express have a top rudder bearing near the cockpit floor? And what is it supposed to look like?

I removed the emergency steering cover plate on my new to me F39 and found an oddly shaped rubber hose section, which doesn’t quite fit around the shaft. Under that, around the shaft is a bunch of gunk that had some string-looking material in it. It looks “wrong” but before I jump to wild conclusions I was hoping someone here would know.

The "stringy material" is greased packing gland material same as used in a propeller shaft packing, The rubber hose thingy was put in place to stop the packing from escaping out the top. This was done to mitagate any movement at the top of the rudder shaft .Remove the old packing and replace with 4 circumferences of new packing < the packing comes in different thicknesses and when you re install it should be tight and need to be lightly tapped in with a hammer. Dont forget the waterproof grease

Thank you for the quick reply! As I was poking around today I saw there’s a bronze cylinder under where the packing material goes that doesn’t seem to be load bearing at all. Do you know if this is just to provide a surface for the packing material to bottom out against? Or does it serve some other purpose?

Your photo mirrored exactly what we saw when we removed our plate, we didn't encounter a bronze ring under the packing, post photo with a depth reference. ie a screwdriver ect

You can see the bronze collar on the rudder shaft in this picture (and the extremely rusted out base plate under the binnacle). It’s loose, pivoting around the thru-bolt that’s the connection point for the emergency tiller. So I’m thinking it’s just for reinforcement, and so the bolt isn’t crushing the laminate rudder post.