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'94 Echelon play in drive shaft?


Michigan boarder

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I would get a good fiberglass patching material with strands of fiberglass in it that will make a strong structural patch. I'm surprised there is nothing under the gel there. There certainly should be. Can you feel inside to see how big the void is? I would expose the void and fill the whole thing. If it is under the strut and will be siliconed, leave it at that. If it will be exposed to water, I would hit it with a thin coat of gel.

OK, I would gel it either way, but I think the silicone would do fine if you don;t have any gel and it's under the strut.

I thought of that on the ride home after posting that pic. I should poke around inside it to see. Even so...I feel like I should expose it and fill it too, like you suggest.

No, it's not covered by the strut. Which I guess is a good thing, it would have made me even more nervous to find a void under that thing.

I've never felt a wobble, but there is a slight ding on one blades of the prop. I'm guessing that caused the cutlass bearing to wear out. That, or it's a 19 year old boat with 600+ hours on it. Either way, that's off to the prop shop. Sure would like to jump into a 515 instead of putting it back on, but my budget is blown. I will be spending almost $2k on her this year!

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I don't have any advice on the fiberglass but the severity of the shaft angle being off would concern me. Even though if you put the strut back on, and then align engine properly, the shaft might be straight in relation to strut, but not necessarily be straight to the boat. Do you follow? Is there any deformity that you cna tell to the strut itself? Or do you think you can get shaft properly aligned with the axis of the boat once strut reinstalled and engine is aligned?

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I don't have any advice on the fiberglass but the severity of the shaft angle being off would concern me. Even though if you put the strut back on, and then align engine properly, the shaft might be straight in relation to strut, but not necessarily be straight to the boat. Do you follow? Is there any deformity that you cna tell to the strut itself? Or do you think you can get shaft properly aligned with the axis of the boat once strut reinstalled and engine is aligned?

Eyeballing it all, the strut and shaft seem in line with the boat. It's never felt way off either while driving. I looked long and hard wondering if the whole thing got tweaked somehow, but that does not appear to be the case. It's like the hole for the shaft was put in the wrong spot. I gotta go back to how it ran and handled, which was fantastic.

What about the washer on top of the strut? Of the 6 holes, only 1 had a washer in between the hull and the strut. This was likely a mistake, right? When I look at the strut, it appears that the hole below that one had a washer on it at one time. I'm pretty sure this should not be, and I think I'm going to just silicone it right to the hull, no washers anywhere. Then do my alignment. The silicone is just standard stuff I can buy at the hardware store, right?

What is the easiest way to remove the bushings? Is cutting them out the best method?

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Easiest way to remove bushings is to use (or borrow) ski-dim's shaft removal tool which is a highly modified slide hammer. Or, your dealer may send them out, perhaps to a prop repiar shop who can do it.

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The offset in the shaft from the engine side might be the culprit for your cutlass bearing wear. It also could be of no concern, as the hole may simply be offset. Personally, being somewhat anal in inquisitive, I would now measure the engine position side to side position to see if it appears centered in the boat. Simply measure at the mounts to see if the engine is centered in the mounts, I think you can simply measure the L/R slider bar mount portion to see if equal on each side (and check to see if the mount is centered on the pad). Not that this all really matters but would supply some clues, one thing to remember is there is a lot of variation in hull builds and molds, fiberglass boat hulls are not at all consistent. Other than if you find an obvious offset, I would not do anything until you reinstall the shaft with the new bearings, then you align everything (don't forget to check the vertical height also and keep the deflection from the shaft and coupling weight off the shaft when you do). The new rudder install and bearings will define the side to side position when you reassemble everything, so you will have the opportunity to recenter the shaft through the hole when you glue and tighten the rudder back in place. Once you have done that, you will have to re-align the engine (side to side) to eliminate any load. I recommend the vesconite bushings for the strut shaft, available from Ski-Dim or OJ, they reduce rotating friction quite a bit. I am willing to bet once you do this job, your boat will run better and smoother.

As noted, I would poke around and remove all loose gel and resin from the void and fill with fiberglass cloth (the chopped stuff as you can create little ball or wad to fill the void) and resin, I would consider doing the job from both sides. Make sure the bottom surface is smooth or below the original so the rudder fits nicely on the original surface and glue it back on as you reassemble (there are pretty good products, I used the really strong green 3M epoxy when putting aluminum floors on race car frames). I think that washer is a "friday mistake!", you want a smooth joint between the rudder and hull.

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Thanks for the advice guys, going to work on all that Tuesday nite.

After some banging around on the strut, freezing it and more light banging, I determined those bushings are not coming out and not worth the fight. So we headed to the lake house Friday night anyway, and Gull Lake Marine was only 45 minutes from there. I dropped off the strut and bushings on Saturday, and apologized profusely for dropping off parts like that and being "that guy". Hope to pick it up next week. Going to measure the engine and get that hole patched up in the meantime.

And....install that sub!

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@Mich Boarder: Am I interpreting your last post to indicate only that you will not do the work and the bushings will be replaced by Gull Lake Marine? You certainly don't want to leave them if excessive clearance. Another way to get the bushings out, use a hacksaw blade (with the non-U shaped handle) and longitudinally slice the bushing while in the strut. Once you have cut through the brass outer shell, you can take a pair of needle nose pliers and twist the bushing inward which will then relieve the press fit and allow you to remove the bushing. You might also need to use a small regular screwdriver to slide between the outer bushing case and strut to get the gap needed to grab with the pliers. Hope this explanation is reasonable clear.

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@Mich Boarder: Am I interpreting your last post to indicate only that you will not do the work and the bushings will be replaced by Gull Lake Marine? You certainly don't want to leave them if excessive clearance. Another way to get the bushings out, use a hacksaw blade (with the non-U shaped handle) and longitudinally slice the bushing while in the strut. Once you have cut through the brass outer shell, you can take a pair of needle nose pliers and twist the bushing inward which will then relieve the press fit and allow you to remove the bushing. You might also need to use a small regular screwdriver to slide between the outer bushing case and strut to get the gap needed to grab with the pliers. Hope this explanation is reasonable clear.

That is correct, I'm not doing the work and instead Gull Lake will has the strut and bushings at their place and will remove the old ones and put in the new ones. If that was not an option my next step was as you described with the hacksaw. If I was not close to the marina I'd have done that, but since I was nearby and knew that I wouldn't have a chance to work on it for a week (been traveling all week) I'd have it done for me. Thanks though!

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