Engine alignment

[elad]

So, I was all prepared to oversize drill out the two 3/8" dia bolt holes that hold the bolts that fasten the cutlass bearing housing to the skeg and fill the over sized holes with Devcon titanium putty. My plan was to then drill and tap the putty to give the two bolts a better anchor. It looked like the two bolts were simply tapped into the fiberglass of the skeg. When I tried to drill out the holes with a 1-3/8" dia spade drill I got in about 3/4" and hit a bronze plate. Ahh ha! The bolts were anchored into the bronze plate by about 1" and not just tapped into the fiberglass. Albin wan not so stupid after all. So now I just need to fill in the oversize hole with reinforced epoxy and bed the cutlass bearing housing once aligned with the engine. I also pulled the drive shaft, had it straightened, had the prop balanced and installed new cutlass bearings in the drive shaft and lower rudder bearing.

There is no electrical bonding to the cutlass bearing housing and it showed a fair amount of electrolysis. The 1" lip had a couple of chuncks broken off but not bad enough to require replacing it. Not sure if I am going to try to run a grounding wire from the cutlass bearing housing to a solid ground inside the bilge. Seems like it would require routing out a channel in the skeg for a ground wire and drilling a thru-hull hole to attach the ground wire to a solid ground in the bilge. Will most likely just leave the housing un-bonded and monitor the electrolysis over time.

As a side note, the main reason for pulling my engine was to more easily replace the timing belt and repair some corrosion that resulted from a leaky raw water pump. As it turns out the old timing belt looked brand new. Still going to replace it but it looked brand new. Now with the engine out I am having the mechanic strip it down and repaint all corroded areas as well as replace the raw water pump, alternator, all hoses and belts, adjust the valves, acid wash and pressure test all inter-coolers, replace a couple of gaskets that were leaking and clean out the turbo which was caked with crud. She should be good as new, well almost new.

[ScubaPete]

You can't hide money, but you sure can sink it into a boat !!!

[RobS]

....Albin was not so stupid after all.

There is quite a bit of "what were they thinking?" type comments on this site from us all but it's never about structural integrity, they put out a fleet of battleships. One of the reasons finances got tough in the long run.

As far as that bonding wire for the stern bearing housing, it sure would have been nice to have had a bonding wire laid internally in the keel when it was poured that connected to one of those threaded bronze plates.