"prop savers"

Hey Eric, I'm interested in your opinion of the urethane prop savers that go between the shaft coupling halves. I ended up installing one on my X55 because when I put on a new bottom I also made a new shaft. I must have measured wrong and ended up with a shaft length with only about 1/16" between the strut and prop. It was easier to install the prop saver than setting up the lathe again to turn the taper on a new shaft!! I must say that after the install, alot of the vibration noise was eliminated.

Eric, Thanks for the input. It is properly aligned and I do check it every year which on a wood boat is very important. When I put on the new bottom, it also required a new innner and outer keel that had to be bored. With the strut bolted on and aligned fore to aft I used a long drill bit extension with a nylon bushing that fit the strut (cutla$$ bearing removed) to bore the hole through the keel. Then with a new cutla$$ and the shaft into the boat (no stuffing box yet) and using a dial indicator to make sure the shaft was centered in the cutla$$ I clamped off the shaft. The engine was then centered and aligned from that point with the usual feeler gauge method. When I mentioned vibration I meant the usual noise you get when turning or rapid deceleration. Thanks again, Pete

Eric, I have never been in a boat where the harmonics don't change at different RPM's, when turning, decelerating or accelerating. Yes, the vibration is only isolated with the prop saver but there also nothing wrong. The shaft can be straight, the cutla$$ bearing new, the engine aligned and have a CNC machined prop on it and you will still get harmonic vibrations. We can't even communicate without producing harmonic vibration!!

Hey Eric, I'm ok and there's no problem!! For awile though I thought I was going to have to hook up a transducer to the hull, then record my findings ,then install a new shaft removing the prop saver, then take the readings again to get my point accross!!!