I've been reassembling my rudders after a long refurbishment project. I don't remember any difficulty disassembling the rudder assembly, but now one of the lower castings has misaligned holes - the one at the top is about 3/32" aft of the other holes when I try to put the rod up thru it (which I don't want to force), and you can look down thru the holes and see the misalignment. The old pins were metal and I've long since disposed of them - possibly one was bent.
After some head scratching and comparison with the other casting, I think the problem is that the holes were cast or drilled improperly. In the pics you can see that there is about 3/8" of metal on the boat side of the bottom hole, and only 1/8" or so on the top. The pin goes up thru at a distinct angle - it's parallel with the boat edge of the casting on the other one. Looks like poor manufacturing rather than being bent. Anyway, have a new one on the way!