shaft rubbing on shaft log

watrski wrote: Big Pappa wrote: watrski wrote: Your strut determines where it is in the log. Yes, but the shaft can still move and "bind" your cutlass bearing causing it to wear faster. Not sure what your trying to say but....OK.

Once you set your strut your shaft can still move 1/4" or so in all directions. That does not mean that it will spin freely in all that area. Knowing where the shaft spins freely in the log and making sure the shaft is in that location once the engine is aligned is what you want to make sure happens.

watrski wrote: Your strut determines where it is in the log.

Yes, but the shaft can still move and "bind" your cutlass bearing causing it to wear faster.

When you do you engine alignment it will help to keep the stuffing box pulled up so you can watch the shaft as you do your alignment and keep it in the center of the log. I learned this the hard way after getting my engine aligned then checked the log to find out it was off from my sweet spot in the center of the log.

Keeping the stuffing box pulled up and watching the log as I did my engine alignment made it much easier the second time to make sure everything ended up in the right place.

after the tenth time reading this, I get it. Get the shaft to spin freely, get it centered in the log still keeping it spinning freely, block it, set the motor to this location.

The top image is my shaft resting on the bottom of my log. I shimmed my rear strut holes and was able to center the shaft in the log. The only problem is the shaft is tight when turning. If I Raise my shaft to the top of the log the shaft spins more freely but needs my assistance to stay there. Should I leave the shaft centered or take out my shims so that the shaft turns more freely when at center of the log. The shaft and cutlass bearing are both new so we can take that out of the question. The second picture is of the shimmmed strut whith the shaft centered but a wee bit tight on the rotation. 1/2" gap between the prop and rear of the strut, right???

Currently the engine is out of the boat. So the only thing pulling the shaft down is gravity at this time. I'm getting ready to drop the engine in and just wanted to make sure everything in correct before I do. The old stringer job that I ripped out had the main stringers to close to each other, so the engine couldn't be aligned properly, their was no room left or right to adjust the engine.

You cannot move the strut back or foward but in your case you would add washers between it and the hull at the rear two bolts. Pete I'm sure be here shortly to advise.

I'm looking for the correct procedure to align my shaft in the shaft log. My left to right seems o.k. but the shaft is resting on the lower lip of the shaft log. Is there a correct procedure to aligning the shaft and strut to the shaft log or is the shaft suppose to rest on it due to to weight of the shaft and the angle? To me it seems like the strut should be moved back in order to center it in the shaft log but I'm not sure. I watched the video on shaft alignment but he doesn't realy talk about getting it to center in the log with moving the strut forward or backward.