Engine alignment

[thirdrail]

I own a 2001 Albin 28TE with 890 hours and have just had the shaft straighten installed a new Tides drip less and pressed in a new cutlass bearing and I have two questions to finish the job.
What is used to bond/bed the bearing housing to the strut would 3M 4200 be appropriate?
My second question is what is the proper process for aligning the shaft/coupler to the transmission? The coupler has a flange that gets mated to the transmission housing, once I pick up the shaft and coupler as the dripless cannot support the shaft and align it to the transmission housing they mate up perfectly. I cannot even get a .001 feeler gauge in between. The tides instructions indicates the shaft should be centered in the shaft log which it appears to be. Am I missing something or did I just get lucky and it is all in alignment?
Thanks for any feedback

[RobS]

Boatlife Life-Calk. 4200 is overkill.

Unlikely you got so lucky to start off at .001. It's a 5inch coupler so .005 is acceptable. .003 is preferred. Are you sure you are measuring it right? I would slide the couplers apart (shaft forward) and then slide the shaft coupler back against the tranny flange but leave a feeler gauge in between them. If you leave a .003 then go around the coupler/flange perimeter with a second feeler gauge and look to get no more than a .006. Make sure the mating surfaces are clean. Check it again after you splash.

[jleonard]

Rob, I got mine to .001 on my Mainship (4 inch dia), maybe I was lucky.
The procedure is correct, the two flanges must first be completely separated, far enough to disengage the pilot , then pull the shaft back until the faces meet.
Proper alignment must be done in the water. As a matter of fact it can change by so much that one could say it is a total waste of effort to dalign on land.
(that depends on the boat and how it is supported)
The cutless should not need any caulk, it is a press fit. There is a set screw(s) on many housings that are used to make sure it stays put. If you have set screws, put a drill spot on the bearing outer shell so the set screw can engage.

[RobS]

When I said lucky I meant that it was .001 without any adjustment, not that it couldn't be obtained.

I believe the area of caulk he is referring to is not the press fit of the bearing into the housing but is where the stern bearing housing flange gets bolted to the back of the skeg keel, see circled area in my photo.

[jleonard]

I believe the area of caulk he is referring to is not the press fit of the bearing into the housing but is where the stern bearing housing flange gets bolted to the back of the skeg keel, see circled area in my photo.

If that's the case, I would use 5200 to get full strength. And lots of it. That's what I used when I re-did my MAinship, and it never leaked.

[thirdrail]

Thank you for the replies and once I followed Rob's suggestion for alignment I quickly realized I wasn't that lucky as it was out of alignment by 5 thousands. I will attempt to realign once the rain stops which won't be until Friday based on the present forecast. Hit all the engine mounts with penetrating oil to get ready for the adjustment.
Rob is also correct in my question and location as to what caulk to use. I thought about 5200 but the cutlass will need to be changed again at some point and I doubt the brass flange of the housing or the mounting area of the keel would fair well if 5200 was used. I thought about 4200 but this also may pose a problem when its time to take it apart. I used Boat life caulk as Rob suggested.

[RobS]

Even with the Life Calk she takes some persuasion to get apart (I've done this more than once, not just on T-R), there's a lot of surface area there for the adhesive and the fact that's it's a bolted connection anything stronger is just overkill IMO. I know it's a little late for this but did you drill out the water passages on both sides after pressing in the new bearing? These can be seen in the red circle on my photos above.

[thirdrail]

I did and thanks for the heads up.I
I did have a hard time finding replacement hardware for the 3/8 silicone bolts. Finally found someone online who sold them. The ones I took out were pretty beat up and I didnt feel comfortable reusing them.

[RobS]

Sounds good. I replaced mine as well, local prop shop had them in stock.

[thirdrail]

After many hours of shifting and jacking the engine on land I got the coupling to about 2 thousands. I figured I would do final adjustment in water. However there was a slight wobble in the drip-less at lower RPM's while on land. I kept at it until I got the alignment to about 1 thousand and there was still a slight wobble. Decided to put her in the water and see what I got. Checked and readjusted to within 1 thousand, slight wobble still present at low RPM's however she ran great. No vibration, WOT was 3900 rpm and picked up a 1-2 mph increase over last year. Cruised at 18 mph at 3250 rpm while drawing 7.8 gals per hour on the flo-scan.
As info in original posts, shaft was removed straightened and matched to coupling, new cutlass and Drip-less installed (Tides Marine). I never looked at the old drip-less while under way so I have nothing to compare it too but is a slight wobble at drip-less normal at low rpm?

[jleonard]

Some wobble is ok

[elad]

At this time my Yanmar 6LP is out of my 2000 28TE undergoing timing belt replacement and other repairs. When we pulled the driveshaft it was extremely difficult to remove. The cutlass bearing was griping it tightly. The cutlass bearing housing was loose and when the two brass screws were removed some 4200-like sealant extruded out. My mechanic said the screws need better backing. He suggests the bolt holes be drilled out oversize and Devcon titanium putty be used then drilled and tapped. Does this sound right?

Also will need to align the shaft. Sounds like the engine nees to be installed first before alignment, right? How is the final alignment done when boat is in the water? Via the coupler or via engine mounts?

[RobS]

Thirdrail, curious how easy or hard was it to get the coupler back onto the shaft, was it a tap fit or did you need to break out the BFH?

[RobS]

Elad, alignment is checked at the coupler and adjusted via the mounts, see above..

[thirdrail]

Rob,
I had the prop shop align the shaft to the coupling so the coupling slid on and off very easy with no problem.
After my test run yesterday which everything appeared to be fine other than the wobble at the drip-less, I decided to take it all apart today and start from scratch. I was expecting the worse, but the coupling came apart very easily, even being joined to the shaft for the last 2 weeks. With the coupling off I could visibly see that the alignment was way off as the shaft was not centered within the transmission housing. I aligned the engine without the coupling so that the shaft was centered within the transmission housing. After this I set the vertical and horizontal alignment based on feel and how easy I could turn the shaft by hand. Put coupling back together adjusted vertical alignment at coupling so that it was dead on but horizontal measurements indicated I had to shift engine back to where I originally had it when it was visibly unaligned. I didn't make any adjustments at this point as I could easily spin the entire assembly with one hand. Tested it tied up to the dock and the wobble was virtually eliminated even at 1000 rpm. I have no explanation why the horizontal measurements were so far off when measured at the coupling but I am much more comfortable that the present alignment is much better than when I adjusted based on coupling measurements alone.

Elad,
I believe the 3/8 silicon bronze bolts and a bedding material such as Boat life caulking or if you dare 5200 is more than sufficient to do the job it has been engineered for if everything is installed properly. As you can see from my response above I can turn the shaft easily with one hand and minimal effort.
I am not sure why your old bearing was difficult to remove unless it was badly aligned and binding on the shaft, or the wrong size bearing was used. My old as well at the new bearing both slid on and off very easily.
As far as the cutlass housing being loose when the bolts were removed this should not be the case. The housing has 1" lip that gets pressed into the shaft housing when the bolts are tightened. I had to slowly pry the hosing off to get it off. For the most part it came out intact but I have seen other posts which this lip was destroyed and they had to but a new cutlass housing for about $500.