Bill Bell, KIALOA, #41

The first thing I would quote to you is "Do the patient no harm". Or, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". If you have an alignment problem - the worst you can do is to experience some unpleasant vibration and accelerate wear on the rear "cutless" bearing.

The way to check for alignment is to measure how much the center of the prop shaft deviates in a revolution. Most crudely - if the boat is in the water and you can't dry it out easily, put on your goggles, dive under, grab the prop and if there is any discernable motion, consider it to be out of alignment. Now, if I walk out of my house and go out on the dock and haul up the thermometer that hangs down 8 feet or so, I read about 44 degress now. If you are equally cool, you may wait until August to try the diving bit. The fact that the stuffing box does or does not leak has almost no correlation to alignment. If the alignment is grossly bad, the beating on the flax packing will eventualy cause a leak, but at any single time, the absence of leak is not an alignment indicator.

I would encourage you to get the 1991 "Improvement Bulletin" if possible. Whoever is Secy or Treas of NTA may still have some copies - two summers ago, I was told they still did. From p. 80 on is all I know about aligning shafts and engines. It is such a horrible subject that few writers write much of anything about it - it is a very uncomfortable subject. Most everyone leaves it to the yard - which needn't be. I firmly believe you can do a better job yourself - if you know what the problems are and are willing to get your hands dirty. You have to start out by checking the alignment of the shaft to the engine. You must not assume that the shaft is perfectly aligned to its flange. If it is grossly out of whack, the shaft and flange should go back to the machine shop. At best, the misalignment should be no greater than such that it can be cured by putting shims in betwen the engine flange and the prop flange. This is dirty and uncomfortable work. I always do this work with the rer "cutless" bearing removed so that the presence of the bearing will not affect alignment by bending the shaft. This is a bitchy little point, but at my labor rate, I can afford it. You then align the shaft in the hole by raising and lowerng the corners of the engine on its bed. In the course of this, you will celebrate a brisk review of certain Anglo-Saxonisms and you will go through every wrench you ever owned, trying to find wrenches that will fit into certain corners. You start with aligning the shaft to the engine and then the engine/shaft assembly to the hole in the bearing housing. Then you slide the cutless bearing into position and you are all set. I can put a water glass on the bridge deck of my boat and see no ripples in the water. A crude test - but interesting. I think there is some good stuff on securing cutless bearings in that same IB. When buying those bearings, try to get one with flat bearing sorfaces - not the curved or "scalloped" surfaces. The flat guys have much larger bearing surface and last longer. However, the greatest life-extender for these bearing will be the alignment job. This realy is a case where the owner can outperform the yard. The yard is under such terrible pressure to slap it out and get it out that they cannot do the job you can. Doing it right really calls for pulling the galley if possible so that you can get at those miserable flanges. You can do the job without - but it will be a better job, more easily accomplished if you have better access. I'm afraid I may have told you more than you want/need to hear. However - if you want any more help on this, let me know. I can send you copies of the salient pages from the IB I spoke of if you can't get a copy. I forgot the # of your boat, but on an old boat - mine is #41 - I can remove the ice box in a half hour max and the galley about the same. I think there may be more trim or fanciness on later boats - but if somebody put it in, you can take it out. And I am assuming mechanical ability and willingness to get grubby.