Dear Carlos, I have the same arrangement on my 1982 Monty. The rod is brass, same thickness everywhere, and it has three cotter pin holes: two at the bottom, close to each other, one at the top. The way I mount it (although I am not sure it is correct, and I would hope someone else would correct/confirm this) is that the rudder's three gudgeons go over the transom ones, the rod goes through it all, and I attach two cotter pins in the two bottom holes, one above and one below the lowest transom gudgeon. Like this the rudder slides easily up and down and turns freely. I can use the line that is on one side of the rudder, slide it through the hole in the rudder, and cleat it on the other side to keep the rudder up for easy launching and retreving.
The rudder does not slide up as much as I'd like, though: this week- end I got stuck twice in the mud because of the rudder at Washington Island, WI, and had to hop out of the boat to push it out. Andrei. _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
