2018 Revolution 13 "down" rudder line broke where spectra line exits the rudder and ties to the "up" rudder line. Very frustrated by 3 issues as I "somewhat" successfully replaced the line myself which took hours unlike the seemingly easy ways shown in the manual and several videos & forums threads I viewed.
1) How can spectra line thread thru the tiny black O-ring inside the white plastic tube, and is the O-ring even needed?
I concluded threading the line thru o-ring was impossible so finally pushed the o-ring out of the tube using electric wire. Then noticed the o-ring was broke but unsure if pushing it out broke it or if was already broke thus preventing line from going thru. In any case, the line threaded easily thru the tube without the o-ring and then I pushed the o-ring back in the tube, albeit broken.
1a) Should I get a new o-ring (and re-do the whole thing) or just leave as is and hope no water enters the hull (which I assume is the o-ring purpose)?
2) How can I untie the knot joining the broken down line and up line where they both exit the rudder, or can I just tie the new down line to the existing knot ... and any tips how to tie around a knot (as opposed to tying 2 end tags together)?
This seems like a silly question but the existing knot seems overly big and so tight I have given up un-tying it. Instead, I tied the new down line around the existing knot in some convoluted way but now the knot is twice the original size and unsure if it will slip under heavy use (works ok in my garage).
3) How do I get the black cap off (and on) the metal rudder bolt since the steering line knot seems stuck in the black cap?
3a) Is that black cap even needed (though I see no way to remove it totally)?
This requires some explanation since some rudders dont have a cap and some may have a more friendly knot.
My rudder has 3/4" black” plastic cap with small middle hole that fits over the 9/16" metal bolt with large middle hole. That black bolt cap is not shown in anything I viewed and does not exist on my 2010 Revo since they only show a metal bolt head but no black cap. I tried a wrench on the black plastic cap to loosen the bolt but that did not work. I tried removing the cap (by pulling it off the bolt head) but it would only come off part way because of a big knot on the steering line that seemingly gets stuck in the small hole of the black cap (the 2018 revo knot is much bigger than the 2010 revo knot). After significant effort, I got the metal bolt exposed so I could partly loosen it but not by much and the black cap seemed to twist the steering line so hard I feared the steering line might break.
In the end, I was able to replace the down line okay, but the so called black cap is stuck on the steering line because I cannot push it all the way back on the rudder bolt head and I fear that cap rubbing the steering line will make it break prematurely (as shown in image below where that is as far as I can push the cap back in).