Revo rudder assembly replacement tips

I’ve done a rough surf session with my Revo 16, and had the kayak pushed some 4ft down by a huge swell. The rudder assembly hit the sand and broke, so I ordered a new one and wanted to share some tips on the replacement process:

1. As far as I know Hobie doesn’t have an official video on how to do it
2. They have an ok PDF with instructions, but it’s super basic
3. I couldn’t buy the part by itself, and had to order the entire assembly, with the rudder (which I didn’t need).

I highly recommend taking pictures before you start disassembling anything. There are 4 lines: up, down, left, right.

The left and right are attached by a screw (and a knot past the screw). Undo the knot first, then unscrew the screw and immediately mark the part of the line where it winds around the screw with a sharpie. This is super critical so that when you put things back, they’ll work out of the box and you wouldn’t need any adjustments. The up & down lines tie to each other. No screw. Same thing here: mark the knot before you undo it.

The up and down lines are short. When you undo them, there’s risk they’ll be swallowed in the tubing due the bungee cord pull. I pulled them out and pinched them between a bolt and a nut to prevent them from going back in. Any other trick involving knots would be a bad idea because, once you put the lines back, you can’t take the knot out, whereas with the nut, you simply unscrew the bolt.

Because the part that broke had a nice reflective tape, I had to use the new part (which didn’t have the tape), and I had to find a replacement. I got a really high quality, waterproof grade 3M reflective tape. It has the same adhesive as the original, so I’m confident it would hold. You can cut it to shape and apply on mildly curved surfaces. Thankfully the rudder drum is not so curved. The brand name on Amazon is Salzmann.

I hope this helps!

How did you order the parts, online or go into a dealer? I was able to order some replacement parts for my i14T by going into the dealer and we were able to look up the part individually by model and year directly from Hobie.

Hobie has a parts PDF with all the part numbers. I needed just the drum, but after looking online for the rudder parts, it seemed that the rudder assembly is sold with the rudder, so I can’t just buy the drum by itself. The whole thing was about $100 on Austin Kayak, which I’ve used before many times, so I just got it from them.
Hope this helps!

Thanks!

I know CCK in Redwood City can order specific parts needed instead of buying the whole thing.

It can sometimes be worth asking on the forum before ordering a part like that. Rumor has it that somebody (I won’t mention any names, but his initials are NwM), has that part and it’s gathering dust.

You might also want to check the gudgeon to make sure it is firmly seated. If it wobbles back and forth, even just a little, that can lead to problems.