strut alignment - part II

[bobct]

I've been putting this off and doing other stuff on the boat instead. It's time, so I cleaned up everything to do a dry fit and come up with a game plan.

The first thing I did was "install" the strut with a bolt in each corner. The purpose was to see how many of the holes I needed to fill as a first step. I was thinking I could probably just do 5 of the 6 and rotate the strut on the last one.

Before I go too much futher, this was done with the shaft/coupler still connected. I haven't touched anything on the engine side yet. I was happy with the alignment last year and didn't have any vibrations but my shaft was slightly cocked in the cutless bearing which is what I'm trying to correct. With a bolt in each corner, I noticed something interesting. Only one other bolt hole really lined up and two of them were off about 1/2 the width of the hole. Plus one hole was enlarged somewhere along the way. I assume to try and get some adjustment on the strut.

I picked the right corner bolts to test because the shaft/cutless alignment looks dead on side to side w/o the other bolts forcing it into the wrong position. So, can I just fill the three holes in question and re-drill them to correct my problem?

I know this isn't by the book but wouldn't this leave my alignment virtually intact? I'm trying to think of what the downside to this would be vs. starting from scratch. How would the engine/shaft know that I moved the strut slightly? The shaft/shaft log centering look good.

What do you guys think?


Bob

 

[makomark]

Bob:

If fixing half the holes is all you need to do, just do it.

With all fasteners tight, you should be able to spin the shafts by hand with minimal effort (some soap on the cutlass may be needed). I would still verify the alignment once the boat goes back into the slip...almost always, something moves a bit.

 

[bobct]

I was hoping you would reply and more so with that answer

That's what I'm going to do and then I'll check my alignment once I'm in for a couple of days. This will make the job I've been dreading pretty straight forward. Thanks for confirming my idea...

Bob

 

[tigawave]

Another approach (probably too late now) is to use a hard composite bearing like Maritex Aq, these are made as a clearance fit in the strut so you can have a dry run and with the shaft chocked you should be able to slide the bearing into the strut and spin it by hand, once this is achieved then the bearing is coated in epoxy and slid in. Removal simply involves heating the carrier and the epoxy softens (make sure you use low temp epoxy such as huntsmans/araldite 2011) They also seem to last longer than rubber by a factor of around 3 on the commercial boats we work with that use them.