Strut bushings

[kfxguy]

I was talking about a second piece of tubing, not the stuffing tube. I have a stinger strut on my mono, it has a fixed, brass tube in there which sets and provides a bearing surface for the floating bushing. But that tube is in there good, you'd have to drill it out to get it out.

Gotcha. Even having a stinger and changing the angle, if the stuffing tube is fixed in it, it still has to slide a little bit. Maybe post a pic.....

[CraigP]

The boat is all together, going to run this evening, so no pic. But on my boat, the stuffing tube comes thru the hull on the outside, extending about 1/4". The stinger housing mounting bracket bolts to the back of the boat and the stuffing tube stub goes thru that. Thst leaves about 0.075" of the tube extended from the mounting bracket. The O-ring goes on that... Then the stinger housing, with its separate bearing assembly, bolts up to the hinge on the mounting bracket. This pinches the O-ring between the stinger and the mounting housing, and provides the ability to move the stinger up and down by compressing the o-ring. So the stuffing tube never penetrates the stinger. They are two, completely different sections. Some stinger setups do have the stuffing tube coming all the way in to the stinger, but I'm not a fan of that setup. I like the two separate sections, with the flex shaft starting just ahead of the O-ring position. This leaves a good, solid shaft in the stinger to work with the bearings. That's how I would use your ball bearing setup in a mono, with the ball bearing races only riding on the solid, hard prop shaft. I believe this is what you are already doing, preaching to the choir!

[Hydrocarbon82]

I just pushed out the Pursuit lead teflon bushings and they're 6.35mm OD x 4.76mm ID & 9.79mm long. That lets a 1/4" OD 0.014" wall K&S tube to slide with a little friction. The overall strut length is 78mm but the 1/4" section is 44.7mm long. The remainder is ID is 9mm. A 3/8" x 1/4" silicone or pvc tube should work great if you're looking to fill that space & seal out the bushing.

The pivot bolt is 66.5mm from the tip, so that's probably the max tube length. Here's a pic for reference:
8JPhqV9.jpg