Lyndel, a quick update and a plea for help

[lyndel]

Hi there just a quick update on how we are doing with "lyndel".
We have had the bottom antifouled and the hull painted white so she is looking quite nice now. We are hoping to get her back in the water this weekend and then take her to our mooring at E.B.C.
The job of getting her back into use has not been without its problems though. Firstly when we went to get her started we found that there was water in the fuel tank ( about 1/2 a gallon! ) which meant we had to drain the tank,fuel lines,petrol pump and carb.
We had to dispose of about 5 gallons of petrol in the process ???
When we brought her she had not long been fitted with a new petrol tank, which on closer inspection was found to be just resting on the bottom of the hull so we had to make up a couple of straps to secure it in place. Also all the fuel pipe connections were loose so that was another couple of hours tightening them all up. We also replaced the pipe from petrol pump to carb with a new BSC approved rubber hose, she now starts and runs like a dream.
We inspected the Z drive and found it to be full of emulsion where the seals had worn.
We removed the leg and took it home to replace the seals.
This is where we need your help, we followed the removal process in the Z drive hand book which came with the boat and when we tried to remove the pin holding the steering arm on we (Derek) broke the lug off the casting on the plate where it goes into the boat. We can get these from Sillette-Sonic, where we got the seals and things,but they are quite expensive. So we were wondering if anybody knows where we can get a secondhand one if so please contact us through the site.
We have repaired the steering arm temporarily but do need to get another one soon.
A little tip if removing the leg on your own boat, instead of driving the pin out of the casting, remove the 4 screws on the back of the leg where the it swivels and then remove the 4 screws at the mounting on the back of the boat, remove the pin from the steering cable inside the engine bay and take the whole unit out in one piece. We wish we had worked this out before we broke it.
We will be taking lyndel for her maiden voyage on sunday if everything goes to plan so if you are on the river Nene between peterborough and Warmington give us a wave.
Cheers Derek and Lyn

[jimfin]

I'll keep all this in mind for working on my Z Drive .
Thanks for the input.