DaySailer.org Forum

I purchased a 1973 DS II. The jib car was frozen. I broke off the nut attempting to free it up. I have two questions.
Is there a way to drill out the broken nut?
If not, if I remove the jib car track, can I reattach or are there nuts holding it in place?

Thanks - Paul

Hi Paul,

I assume the "nut" your describing is the knurled thumbscrew that holds or allows the fairlead block to move along the track (the nut is strangly enough the female side of the equation). Since the screw shaft is frozen it wouldn't hurt to try some Liquid Wrench and/or heat to start with, but don't melt the boat.

If there is enough of the thumbscrew's shaft still showing I would try to get a tight hold of it with a vice-grip pliers and unscrew it. If there is not enough shaft exposed to grab it I would then try to make a slot in the shaft, using a dremel tool and a friction disk, and then unscrew it with a straight blade screwdriver. If the shaft is recessed in the hole you might use a drill and a small drill bit, smaller than the threads, and run it in reverse- it might catch, with enough pressure, and unscrew the remains of the screw. There is a tool called a screw extractor that will definately catch, it has a tapered reverse thread, you drill a small hole in the end of the shaft and then use the extractor (in reverse) to unscrew the screw, but you need the correct size for the screw- I believe it is a #10-32. However, I've never come across an extractor set that still had the small extractors still intact!

If that fails you can drill the screw out using the next larger screw size pilot hole drill (i.e. #7 drill for a 1/4-20), retap the hole at 1/4-20 and get a suitable replacement thumbscrew at a hardware store. However, the 'T-nut' on the car might be too small to allow this. Last option is replace the car and block. D&R Marine probably has it or try Duckworks if your on a budget.

My tracks have a combination of wood screws and machine screws with nuts so I am unable to move them to the top of the coaming as I want and will need to cut access holes in the coamings near the tracks in the future to get to those nuts, my DS2 is vintage 1972.

Good luck!

Roger Conrad installed inspection ports in the cuddy bulkhead to access the jib track backing plates. This would probably work for relocating them to the coaming top as well?

Access port inside cuddy, starboard side:




Area behind starboard seat. Arrow points at backing plate:





Behind port seat:

Thanks Tim, but I already cut access holes there but my teenee tinee arms can't seem to reach the far nuts even with a wrench. And, by the way, my bulkhead is so uneven and curved that I could not install the plastic access ports I bought for the purpose (the threads got too warped to take the bung), so I put weather stripping around the hole and screwed thin plywood to the buklhead.

I have been planning to remove the bench seats and build some hinged adult sized seats which would also free up space in the cockpit for sleeping, and was waiting for that project to get scheduled by the appropriate synapses. The track moving project will become part of that cockpit mod.

Sorry for the extra post- i'm getting this following error when I submit...

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I got a similar response last night, so I said the heck with it and went to bed, figuring I'd edit in the morning. A bit of a surprise when my post was there this morning - glad I'd thought it through.

I sent Bob a message - in case he knows how to fix that.