Cutlass, Prop shaft & prop update

phatsat67 wrote: Looks good! Also, while you have some fresh packing on hand you may want to re pack the rudder stuffing box. Looks like its hanging out of the rudder port quite a bit (rudder play is adjusted with the stuffing nut). You want about 1/16" up and down play in the rudder shaft. The picture may be deceiving my eyes since the focus is on the propeller.

Funny you should point this out as I was recently told the same by a marine tech.   I had my boat in for some repairs (I'll explain that later) and they've had it so long the weather here in Kansas has turned a bit cold. Since I've been working out of town every week for nearly 2 months and will be into January, I decided to just have the shop winterize her for me and they went through it to see if there was anything that needed attention. He said it had about 1/4" of vertical play and although it is not leaking would benefit from some rudder shims (which I was going to ask about on the forum at some point). Good news is she came out with a clean bill of health other than the rudder and of course the terribly rusted and frozen motor mounts.

shierh wrote: My rudder gland is the top surface where the tiller arm rides.   it adjusts up and down. I would think the proper amount of packing wraps will dictate the height of the packing gland nut.   Not sure why you would want to add shims.

Because depending on the packing depth, tightness, size of packing, tolerance of the gland, etc. shims are needed and normal.

gt40KS wrote: Pete, the tech working on my boat told me he thought the only shims available these days were 1/16" thick?

I wouldn't believe everything the tech tell you.

A little shopping will find plenty of different thicknesses

As with most repairs and such I plan to do the work myself so I was just needing to know if that was true, or if they just couldn't find a source for them considering they are primarily a MC dealer.

FYI   Correct Craft cut there own shims in the machine shop and used them as needed.

8122pbrainard wrote: ..... You can even find the Oilite washers in your local hardware store. I suspect your MC "tech" doesn't know where a Ace hardware store is.

Well, update. In fact a rather disturbing update.   I am now suspecting the MC "tech" was actually the 8 year old son of the guy that sweeps their floors !!!

Weather giving us a (very short) break this week, I decided to start on a few of the items on the boat, namely the rudder shims we spoke about previously. While I had the interior out, I figured I needed to check the alignment that was done when the MC dealer replaced the skeg, shaft and prop last fall.   GOOD thing I did .... what I found, well there aren't even any words. Pics, will have to do all the talking.   BRACE yourself guys, and remember, this was supposed to be a master tech at a Premier MC dealership ....





Ohhh, but it gets worse:





As you can see the shaft is nowhere close to center in the log or centered with the engine coupler, it's over 1/2" off ! How many thousandths is that?? Just a few more than 3, and I'm very sure it's really a lot more than that because the shaft isn't just resting against the log, it's pressing against the log wall.
Then there is that last pic. If you look closely, you'll notice it wasn't ground to the coupler, merely quickly bolted on, and rather loosely at that.   I haven't removed the prop yet, but based on what you see here, I'm very sure it wasn't ground to the shaft either.   

Wow. SOOO glad I decided to check out their work and not just take it on faith their "Master Tech" knew what he was doing.

Yes Ken,   didn't really want to advertise the oops and make my daughter feel worse that she already did.   It's been long enough now though.   Story was my daughter and I went out for one last run late in the season last fall and long story short the combination of a panic situation and a lake she wasn't very familiar with ended with her driving the boat over some really nasty underwater rock hazards.   Bent the cutlass about an inch to the port, warped the shaft and the new prop looked like rumpled tin foil.   
I would have done all the work myself (again) but since it was to be an insurance claim I was forced to take the boat to a dealership.   And since our new CC dealership in town was barely open and didn't have their service/ repair facilities done yet I was also forced to take it to the only other "approved" shop around - the infamous MC dealership indicated above.

Just like with cars, in the "Marine World" sometimes you run into,those "professionals" that could use a little extra help getting things right.   

Maybe it was a new guy, maybe they forgot the alignment part of the job, maybe you should be checking that new strut installation pretty closely too if you're smart.

Hence why................the DIY hobbyist websites like this exist.

Did you slide your 2 piece collar up to the coupling before the picture was taken or did they leave it up there where it couldn't really do what it was supposed to do if the shaft broke at the coupling. In your September pictures it was in the right spot.

KENO wrote: Oh............., I almost forgot, tell your daughter it was the navigator's fault

LOL -- Funny, that's just what my wife said      But honestly, that's really not all wrong. I knew the lake fairly well and also knew my daughter did not. She had driven into a cove to check out the new dock that had been rebuilt and drove entirely too close to the side of the cove that you don't drive on, especially when the lake is a bit low. By the time I noticed where we were it was too late.

Anyway, with the boat down for winter it's a good time to take care of some of the "list".
I wasn't going to dig into it this winter, perhaps next, but since the motor mounts have to be replaced and the shaft has to come out again anyway I figure it's a good time to tear into the engine. Cleaning up all the grease, sloppy wiring and giving it a good, proper paint job. I'm going to swap the heads to GT40P and maybe, if it's not too much of a pain, bump the cam up a bit.
Momma got her wish - she said I needed another project to get me out of the house
    

8122pbrainard wrote: Joe, Regarding the taper at the coupling end, I have mentioned I've been lapping them to the coupling as well.

Yes, I remember several of the group instructing me with this last fall and I'm thankful this site and it's folks exist, this being my first direct drive and first time dealing with a non-spline prop set-up.   I had done this the first time and everything worked great.

What is irritating in this situation is not that I have to do the work - I love doing this sort of stuff.   It's that I have to   REDO the work of a supposed master professional, who was paid for doing the work.    BUT, at least now I will KNOW that the job is done correctly !!   I had gotten the last shaft & coupler installed with an overall tolerance of a mere .0005". It's going to be a bit more work this time since I'll have to remove the new cutlass and reinstall it (correctly) but I'm sure I can get it spot on as well.   

I figured on passing this off to the dealer at some point - think I'll go in and have a discussion with the owner/ manager. But honestly I'm not sure if that will help much. This dealer is sort of known in the area for being a bit of a snob. I was actually surprised when the agreed to work on such an old boat as mine. Their normal attitude is "don't bring anything to us older than 10 years and worth less that 50K ,,,"

The new boats stay in alignment so well that the techs probably have very little experience with dealing with alignment issues like you have.

JoeinNY wrote: gt40KS wrote: I'm going to swap the heads to GT40P and maybe, if it's not too much of a pain, bump the cam up a bit. I have had good luck with dropping in 1.7 ratio roller rockers with gt40p heads and the stock bottom end/cam, Had no clearance issues and a pretty good wake up for sure...

It will be interesting to see first hand if the ecm has any trouble compensating for any of those changes or if it's a myth

Joe,
I'm pretty sure you have studied the alignment issue but to me it looks like it's the strut that's out. Just a friendly reminder to where to start and yes, alignment always starts at the strut!

hope they didn't put the strut in with 5200.