Bavaria Ocean rudder stock

[Jam]

Hi
Have large circular nut that screws down on the top of the rudder stock that has locking screw which prevents it unscrewing with a cone that is screwed to the nut which is dome shaped.  There is nothing between the locking nut and metal which attatched to the deck where the stock sticks through.  There is nothing between these 2 metal surfaces the nut and cone both rotate on the lower metal. Should there be something between them.  I have removed the nut and cone to degrease question is how tight do they need to be as they only seem to be there a secondary safety mechanism and do not support weight on rudder.  Note nut is circular and tighten with pin spanner.  Hope this is clear and difficult to explain with no pics
Thanks

[Yngmar]

There are two large nylon washers between the top nut and the upper bearing housing. These do support the weight of the rudder (although in the water the rudder is supposed to be of relatively neutral buoyancy). The only other thing keeping the rudder from falling out is the quadrant touching its frame, and you do not want that to happen. There's another such washer between the rudder blade and the lower bearing housing to prevent the rudder from being pulled too far up. All of these do wear and lose thickness.

[Jam]

Thanks I seem to be missing the washerson the upper part as far as I can see. The rudder was removed due to issues of binding when I purchased the boat, could nearly turn the wheel.  I had an issue last year crossing to Ireland as the quadrant was touching the housing slightly on certain position near the end of trip.I loosed the stop bolt slightly which was screwed down tiight and this opened the frame slightly and no issues since.  There is no movement of the rudder laterally or up or down in the yard presently.   Also not sure regard the lower one as rudder was removed and bits left for me to reassemble following a fall out with company which were putting back in bearings that were too tight to allow rudder to turn....there were only the new bearings which were adjusted to fit left and the nut on the top. Any idea where I can purchase these nylon washers for the top bit?
Note had 3 years so no issues initially on replacing bearings.
JOHN

[Yngmar]

Any workshop with a lathe should be able to turn you some. The exact dimensions don't matter - just make sure the ID fits over the rudder stock and the OD is smaller than the cover dome. Thickness depends on what your boat needs and you can stack them up to match. Below is a photo of mine from when I first took things apart. The thin black ring was some foam thing. I'm not sure what its purpose was, perhaps retaining grease? It crumbled to bits and I just binned it.

[Jam]

Excellent thanks for that.  Mine looked slightly different in that the nuts outer surface is threaded and the dome screws onto this.  Have a place that will make the rings up but costly at £30 each....may look elsewhere.
Still trying source all leaks....know you tackled them but didn’t manage to trace em all
Thanks, glad site go up and running again.
John