Shaft to Transmission alignment

Hello All,
I'm new to the forum but have been following for sometime now....Great info!

I have a 2005 FourWinns with twin 6.0 Captains choice and Hurth transmissions. I want to make sure the shafts are aligned correctly. The boat is on the hard and I noticed the shafts are near the bottom of the logs but not touching. I just replaced the Cutless bearings so they are brand new. The old ones showed a slight amount more wear at the 6 o'clock position but not horrible. I assume the engines have sagged a little over time? She has about 220 hrs total.
Question? Can I align things the best I can on the hard then recheck once in the water for 24hrs? Should I try and get the shafts in the middle of the logs and align the engine to that?

Appreciate any insight

That is exactly what you're supposed to do. But the shafts shouldn't be at or near the bottom. They should be in a packing of some sort that will be supporting the shaft at the engine end. If that's not there, gosh don't put the boat in the water, you'd sink it in minutes. So if the shafts are poking thru the shaft packing, and supported on the other end with the cutless bearing, the shaft will be pretty much where it is supposed to be when running.
No the engines shouldn't sag at all. The boat will be a little bit deformed by being out of water, so you'll want to do final alignment when it is back floating again.

NW Cruiser said:

...2005 FourWinns with twin 6.0 Captains choice and Hurth transmissions. ... replaced the Cutless bearings... The old ones showed a slight amount more wear at the 6 o'clock position ...

Click to expand...

6 o'clock as measured how?

When was the last time you checked the alignment?

I have found that the Crusader style mounts have a decent service life but they are not static and require periodic alignment checks.

When I looked at the cutless bearings there was more wear in the rubber near the bottom. When I looked at the shafts going thru the logs they were very close to the bottom maybe 1/8''? I have never checked the alignment with a feeler gage yet but assumed things have settled some given what I'm seeing.
There is no vibrations or odd noises at this time when under way.

This boat has the Tides Marine seals "no packing"

on the cutless bearing wear, was it at the front of the cutless or the aft end?

Based on the description of what's going on at the log, I'd suspect the cutless wear was at the front...this means the engine has to be raised to get the shaft centered in the log....and then fine tuned to get the coupler faces parallel...

Yes, the wear on the cutless favoring the forward side.
Would it be best to un-couple the shaft from the transmission, center the shaft in the log and then raise the motor to match? I'M just not sure if centering the shaft in the log will throw the shaft out of wack with the strut?

Thank you for replying makomark I appreciate the help..

That's the way I would approach it....usually, you can make a "shim" to hold the shaft centered in the log....if the shaft spins free there, the strut should be ok...if not, the strut will need shimming...