common and not so common questions
Printed From: CorrectCraftFan.com
Category: General Correct Craft Discussion
Forum Name: Common Questions
Forum Discription: Visit here first for common questions regarding your Correct Craft
URL: http://www.CorrectCraftFan.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8690
Printed Date: November-21-2024 at 8:29pm
Topic: common and not so common questions
Posted By: eric lavine
Subject: common and not so common questions
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 11:54am
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once again i cant strive how important alignment is and how costly it can become if a boat is out of alignment, I will probably retire early due to mis-aligned boats, i have 2 this week, without getting into the business end, one left yesterday at $1731.00 because of mis-alignment. in a way i feel like the chef giving away his secret recipe which is taboo, but there is plenty of tranny work out there. the other one is due to leave Friday and im too embarrassed to say how much. these are larger boats, but the same rules apply for all inboards.
I ask alot of questions to customers usually and most.... 95% do not even know you have to align a boat and I think a little more than a year ago alot on the site may not known much about alignment. In my eyes a misaligned boat is like running 3 quarts low on oil...would you let that happen? probably not Maybe we could add the alignment topic to this topic ------------- "the things you own will start to own you" |
Replies:
Posted By: quinner
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 12:31pm
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Eric,
My boat as an example, 05' Ski Nautique 206 w/330hp used primarily for skiing on deep water, currently about 185hrs, a handful of power turns in it's life, how often should the alignment be checked? Last weekend did a visual check through the access hole while running slow, all appeared OK or nothing obvious anyways. In all honesty I have never had an alignment issue that I knew of on any of my previous CC's and never checked them, perhaps just lucky up to this point, just don't want to push it. ------------- http://www.correctcraftfan.com/diaries/details.asp?ID=1143" rel="nofollow - Mi Bowt |
Posted By: eric lavine
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 12:46pm
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most maintanance manuals say once a year or after you trailer the boat, i would make it routine and include it in winterizing or spring start-up, it is the cheapest tune up you could ever do on the boat, you would be surprised if your out of align and re-align it how much better the boat will perform, remember: a boat out of alignment means more load which means more horsepower to turn the prop, I hate doing alignments more than anything but it is something that can't be overlooked, you remember a few months back when i contacted you about that pro-star, well that ended being out about .021 and it was causing the output bearings to heat up and foam the oil, at that point it would come out the breather and into the bildge, that had 3 trannies in it and finally i made him bring it down from Chicago and personally aligned it for him. once he left i never heard from him again, problem solved.
------------- "the things you own will start to own you" |
Posted By: M3Fan
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 12:51pm
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Eric, FWIW I've taken two trannies out of two boats and both times they went back together with good alignment without touching anything. I was amazed both times. With both a feeler check and just being able to spin the prop with my pinkie with no resistance, I'm pretty confident that both boats were still aligned afterwards. I've actually never had to align an inboard in 5 years of inboard boating. It's probably a good thing since it sounds like something you could really mess up if done incorrectly. Based on my minimal experience it would seem these little CC inboards hold their alignment pretty well. ------------- 2000 SN GT40 w/99 Graphics/Gel 2016 SN 200 OB 5.3L DI https://forum.fifteenoff.com |
Posted By: M3Fan
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 1:35pm
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Eric,
Also, on my current boat the engine is pushed over to the starboard side on the forward and rear mounts. I figure the factory probably slides the engine one way or the other as a fudge factor from one hand-made boat to the next. This makes it almost impossible for me to get a wrench around the rear mount adjustment/lock nut. Any ideas for a tight situation like this? ------------- 2000 SN GT40 w/99 Graphics/Gel 2016 SN 200 OB 5.3L DI https://forum.fifteenoff.com |
Posted By: backfoot100
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 3:07pm
Joel; I just ran into this exact scenario on my boat. I ended up using a flat punch and hammer on the corner of the nut to move it enough so I could adjust the height. Then just did the same thing to lock the nut down again. Didn't take too much effort at all and didn't scarf up the nut either. In fact, I first thought that I could use a crowsfoot wrench on it, but there aren't many places that you can find them anymore. Let alone one thats 15/16" so my search for something like that was short lived. The punch and hammer worked great. ------------- When people run down to the lake to see what's making that noise, you've succeeded. Eddie |
M3Fan wrote:Posted By: quinner
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 3:42pm
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Eric,
Another great reason for you to make the trip to GL next summer, you could do an "Alignment Clinic" which could be documented for the site, bring the whole family and write the trip off as a business expense, bonus is Hollywood will have his typical full cooler of Wine Coolers for you to indulge yourself with. ------------- http://www.correctcraftfan.com/diaries/details.asp?ID=1143" rel="nofollow - Mi Bowt |
Posted By: eric lavine
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 4:33pm
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if you knew how many purposly bent wrenches i have for this reason, sometimes you have to support the side of the engine and remove the mount and wire wheel them so the nuts are free turning by hand, then get it back in and use your fingers, remember your engine sits on 4 points and the weight has to be equal on each, with the top nuts loose on the motor your engine cant teeter totter, if you need to move the rear up or down you start by turning each side a quater turn and go from there, the important thing and to keep in mind is even weight distribution on each mount ------------- "the things you own will start to own you" |
Posted By: M3Fan
Date Posted: October-11-2007 at 4:54pm
Excellent idea. I'll try it out! ------------- 2000 SN GT40 w/99 Graphics/Gel 2016 SN 200 OB 5.3L DI https://forum.fifteenoff.com |
Posted By: 62 wood
Date Posted: October-15-2007 at 1:56pm
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Eric,
What is the best way to adjust alignment for those of us with old wood mounts that are lagged into the stringers? ------------- http://www.correctcraftfan.com/diaries/details.asp?ID=1117&sort=&pagenum=6" rel="nofollow - 64 American Skier 62 Classic.. 73 Ski Nautique |
Posted By: eric lavine
Date Posted: October-15-2007 at 5:29pm
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shimstock, it is a common practice and alot of the old Chris's use them, going on a final alignment tommorow, man i dread it but it has to be done ------------- "the things you own will start to own you" |
Posted By: 8122pbrainard
Date Posted: October-15-2007 at 7:08pm
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Steve, I wanted to hear what Eric had to say before responding plus it was his question anyway. I have probably aligned more wood boats with wood stringers than fiberglass so hopefully I can add something. Eric is correct that shims can be used for height adjustment. More common are wood wedges or on the higher end wood boats a cast iron wedge. With the wood wedge, you do all the alignment with the position of the wedge and then drill a clearance hole for the lag bolt through it. On boats that get the proper care (alignment every spring on wood after about 2 weeks in the water) the repeated drilling of these clearance holes in different positions requires new wedges every couple of years. Side to side movement if required is a little more difficult and hopefully not required. There is some slop in the holes but most of the time you need to bend the lag bolt sideways and then tighten them up if the adjustment is small. The other option is to move the strut slightly. The worst I have encountered was after a new bottom was put on the boat. It was so far off that I had to plug the original lag bolt holes and relocate new ones. ------------- /diaries/details.asp?ID=1622" rel="nofollow - 54 Atom /diaries/details.asp?ID=2179" rel="nofollow - 77 Tique 64 X55 Dunphy Keep it original, Pete < |
Posted By: eric lavine
Date Posted: October-15-2007 at 7:31pm
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the boat im on now has a Borg Warner in it, 1.91:1 ratio, Both transmissions were rebuilt in 2003 and aligned, the guy did hit something with the port prop and bent the shaft and while spinning the shaft i heard and felt alot of clatter, I proceded to tear the rear of the trans off noticing one of the mounts was backed completely out (inboard port)
The entire output section was shot due to the mis-alignment, luckily for the owner the surveyor recognizes it as damage from striking the object and is covering it, thanks to the insurance company he is getting a rebuilt trans, shaft and fitted coupling, prop, rudder and rudder port, damper plate. the damage alone from the mis-alignment is in the 2k range and thats why i always preach...and practice alignment on these boats. I cant stress enough how important alignment is, 20% of transmissions fail due to mis-alignment and when they do its not hundreds in damage, its usually thousands because of the severity of the damage ------------- "the things you own will start to own you" |
Posted By: NCH2OSKI
Date Posted: October-16-2007 at 12:28am
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What is the correct way, and tollarance to check for proper alignment on a late model CC?
Thanks Jeff |
Posted By: 87BFN owner
Date Posted: October-16-2007 at 12:40am
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Here is a link that should help answer your questions, so long as it works.
http://www.correctcraftfan.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6037&KW=alignment - http://www.correctcraftfan.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6037&KW=alignment ------------- |
Posted By: Riley
Date Posted: October-17-2007 at 3:35pm
| What about just spinning the prop, and if there is no resistance the whole way around, is that an indication it's probably ok? |
Posted By: eric lavine
Date Posted: October-18-2007 at 5:46pm
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i can still turn unaligned boats by hand, they will turn, and it will also turn much easier once aligned, so the answer is no, I spoke with the doc last night about alignment because i aligned a customer's 2.50 shafts, those have to be perfect because there is very little give in a thicker shaft and in this case if out of align they are real tough to turn because the thicker shafts dont give like these 1" ski boat shafts, the problem with the thinner shafts is they have a tendency to whip, also the shorter the shaft the more critical the alignment. I also spoke with backfoot yesterday about his engine to hull clearance, he hand very little clearance between his oil pan and hull and he was concerned in which he should be. You can be in align and have this situation, what you need to look at is the strut bearing in this case the shaft may be pressing down the rubber in the front of the strut at the bottem and in the rear it will press at the top which means the shaft is not directly in the center of the strut, in this case he would have to move all 4 mounts up more so in the front to accomadate the angle then make sure the shaft is in the center and then proceed to re-align ------------- "the things you own will start to own you" |
Posted By: 8122pbrainard
Date Posted: October-18-2007 at 8:23pm
Eric, When changing a cutlass bearing, I have a hard nylon bushing I like to use temporarily instead of the rubber to avoid this. It will center the shaft in the strut. I use it first without even the stuffing box in place to locate the engine. ------------- /diaries/details.asp?ID=1622" rel="nofollow - 54 Atom /diaries/details.asp?ID=2179" rel="nofollow - 77 Tique 64 X55 Dunphy Keep it original, Pete < |
Posted By: 20th Century
Date Posted: October-20-2007 at 1:45pm
| I saw what I believe to be a severe case of what can happen with mis-alignment. My nephew had commented last year that his stepdad's boat had to have a new prop shaft put in because the old one broke in half. I'm not sure where. Anyway they had a small inexperienced (in my opinion) shop replace it. About a month ago I get a call from my nephew asking if I could go get his stepdad who was stranded on a strangers vacant boatlift. To make a long story short, we found that the entire fiberglass area supporting the stuffing box was GONE! The shaft had apparently vibrated enough to finally fail and shatter this area, making about a 2" by 4" long hole in the boat bottom. The boat is (or should I say was) an early 90's Supra. |
Posted By: Geno
Date Posted: December-12-2007 at 6:08pm
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Eric - you coming to AL anytime soon?
I'm very concerned about the alignment on the separator. |