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| Tony's Tips |
ARTICLE DATE: 10/01/2005 |
| Installing shafts, logs,
struts & rudders with your favorite engine / transmission |
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| With the strut & bearing in place "permanently", our
shaft is now finished machined to the exact length with the coupling installed.
Back to the vessel and we now do a "feeler gage" alignment between the engine
and shaft. With that done, we now move to permanently install the shaft
log using the shaft to hold it in place or, to "Float" it in place. Many
times we use the log tube to become our intermediate strut. Simple, strong
and practical. Using an "intermediate" or mid-bearing, is based upon shaft
to diameter length, application and past experience. You typically want
to keep your intermediate bearing at least 20 (30 is better) shaft diameters
behind the transmission output flange on flexible mounted engines to allow
for some un-strained movement that all boat/engines have. If installing
a cast bronze shaft log, we still use this technique of letting the shaft
hold the log in place while aligning / fitting / attaching. |
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| Strut-shaft
holds shaft log in place |
Fiberglass
log fitting |
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| Fiberglass
log fitting |
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| With our log now installed in perfect alignment, we
do some finishing touches like drilling for water flow in front of our "mid-bearing",
some finish gel coat, etc.. We install our packing gland of choice, and
now move to finishing all 4 engine mounts/rails that will allow us to finally
install our engine. During all of this work, our transmission was the key
piece of this puzzle, kinda like a corner stone, and will now be used to
finalize the rest of the engine mounting brackets, etc.. |
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| V-Block
to set a log straight to shaft |
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| Glassed
and rigid |
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| Since our shaft is now in place, we recheck
for "feeler gage" alignment, and have the option now of actually drilling
our transmission isolator to stringer brackets connection. After all, we
have perfect alignment, that shaft is in position, so there is no reason
not to. Certainly easier as everything is easy to get to as we still have
not lifted in the engine. And, we also know that when the engine is installed,
its weight will compress the rear isolators some (maybe 1/8" or so) , but
we compensated for that when we designed and set our transmission bracketing
in place - right??. |
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| Log-intermediate
strut combo |
Strut
and intermediate
strut-log combo |
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