Engine Alignment Calculator

I have developed an OBD II system to diagnose some problems that may be common on a 70 Mustang with your laptop. The boat must be in the water with the engine running to perform this diagnostic procedure.

I. Launch your Mustang and secure it to the dock and start it in neutral.

2. leave your bilge pump in the off position.

3. Turn on your laptop and put it in the bilge.

4. If the computer fails within 1 minute you most likely have a very large leak, such as a hole in the hull.

5. If it takes 1-3 minutes check your exhaust hoses and freeze plugs.

6. If it takes more than 3 minutes check your rudder and log packing.

7. If it operates for more than 3 minutes and suddenly fails, check to see if it's raining.

No special software required.

I have a 99 Toyota Epic 21. I was originally looking for a nautique but ran across this Epic 21 in good shape so went with it. The drive layout is the same as any other direct drive out there though..

Sounds like the tool is more of a toy than anything else. Maybe I should go back to doing the alignment with the big fookin hammer

DrCC wrote: Pete,   The dealers around here, won't even touch a boat that's older than 10 years.

I feel that's because the "techs" can't plug in anything to the engine to tell them what's wrong! I wonder if they even know what the old Sun tune up centers were?

Pete,   The dealers around here, won't even touch a boat that's older than 10 years.

DrCC, stay clear of me when wearing those latex gloves.

I kinda like Eric's comment.

The E A Calculator aka: Service Bill-Enhancement Tool.

If you align mine with a Lap-Top, Micrometers and Calipers. You by gawd better be wearing a White Laboratory Coat and Latex Gloves.


When you see the Lab Coat and the Laptop you should automatically expect to pay more.


Well, I'm off to the shop to design a Sweat-Guard for my Laptop Keyboard.

8122pbrainard wrote: Chris, Welcome to CCfan. What boat do you have?

Assuming Chris used a likeness to his own boat on this image, my guess is a Mastercraft.

Doc, great response, LOL and ^^ Ditto on what Tim Said ^^

DrCC wrote: Finally!!!   A Tool to make it even more time consuming!

Yes, An inside micrometer would be needed to measure the horizontal distance between the engine and stringers. Then calculating the number of of turns needed per the thread pitch of the vertical threads on the mounts. Sounds easy to me!

I guess I'll finally get to use my engine leveler. We don't have much room to play with between the bottom of the engine and the hull. We're using the same rear mounts on the Interceptor that are on the Chrysler, so I'm hoping we'll use the same holes/location for the new engine at the tranny end.

Riley wrote: Pete, How do you set the rough alignment? When you're installing an engine that's never been in a boat, how do you set it up so that it's close enough that you can do the fine alignment with the mounts, once it's in the boat?

Bruce, we essentially had to do this on the BFN since we changed pretty much everything about the way the engine mounts to the boat. The only thing that didnt move was the shaft log. First, we got the strut perfectly aligned to the log and mounted to the boat. On the engine side, what we did was to center the mounts in their adjustment range and then set it down in the boat, in the approximate place it was going to go. With the shaft in place (and supported such that it was aligned in the strut) we then used big pry bars to get the engine "rough aligned" to the shaft. Basically, it had to be close enough to aligned that we were confident we could get the rest of the way there with the adjustment in the mounts. Front to back was the most critical thing, as the mounts cant adjust for that. Then we marked and drilled our mount holes. Then we installed the engine for real- the rest of the way, its just like a normal alignment (assuming you got it close enough with the rough alignmnent!).

8122pbrainard wrote:    What boat do you have?

Don't know, but it must be REALLY old, in that the instructions on the web page I brougth up were in Latin. (maybe its just that whole internet explorer thing, which I am limited to here at work...or maybe it was done that way to make it easier for Pete    Sorry Pete, just messin' with ya)

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hah, finally a tool at 85.00 bucks an hour, that i can make money on

We need you to develope a program that moves the engine telepathicly.

I've been putting together a web based engine alignment calculator for direct drive boats to calculate the necessary adjustments at the motor mounts in order to bring the engine and prop shaft into perfect alignment while moving the position of the prop shaft as little as possible. I got the idea after doing an alignment on my boat and realizing that traditional wisdom of "pry with a crowbar" until the shafts are aligned leaves something to be desired and that there has to be a way to calculate geometrically how much the engine needs to be moved.

Basically it works like this, go to the web page below and punch in input values for D ( the shaft flange diameter ), R1 ( distance from flange surface to rear motor mounts ), R2 ( distance from flange surface to front motor mounts ), and max flange gap. The max flange gap is the maximum gap you can find between the flange surfaces when the two flanges are just touching. You can find this by bringing the flanges together till they are just touching then using your smallest feeler gauge ( mine is 0.0015" ) to feel all the way around the flange till you find where its touching. The max gap will be on the other side.

Once you have the four input fields filled in, you can drag and drop the red arrow to indicate the position of the max flange gap and this triggers the calculations. The outputs are the gap quadrant calculations ( what the gap should measure with a feeler gauge at each of the quadrants ) and the alignment calculations.

I hope u guys can make good use of this and that I'm not way out in left field... questions, comments, and feedback are welcome :)

Note: not currently working in Internet Explorer, I have currently only tested in Firefox and Chrome

Click here to launch...
http://vent.hack22.net/directalign