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Loose nut or am I not that lucky


Loose nut or am I not that lucky?  

11 members have voted

  1. 1. Tightening the nut fixed the issue?

    • Yup, good to go, 10 second free fix!
      7
    • Nope...you have plenty of time to invest in troubleshooting now
      4


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A buddy, my 5 year old and me were out this evening on a weekday surf run.  2nd time out weighting her evenly, about the heaviest we have ever run her (Faux-nix Eight.3 Wake Shaper):

This evening was our first time with the prototype swim platform we built.  Narrrowed/raised - the new brackets have many, many, many hours spent at the machine shop, with custom detachable surf flap and just a plywood top for our first test run (it went well).

Anyway, I was surfing my set and my buddy all of a sudden cut the throttle.  Both he and my 5 year old noticed a vibration in the boat.  No debris in the water, depth in that area is 25-30 feet.  We know the area very well, so I'm 100% positive we never came close to touching ground.  He never felt us hitting anything.  Dump the ballast and still has a noticeable vibration - pretty much anything above idle.  Engine revs fine, doesn't seem to be missing.

So I get it out of the water, expect a bent prop (I've bent several and this is what it feels like).  Prop looks flawless.  I have went out and studied it twice, slowing spinning, looking at different angle...I just can't see any issue with it.

When tugging on it, she seems to have just the slightest amount of play.  I mean so slight it could have been in my head/wishful thinking.  Now this prop was put on last fall when my wife bent our spare on our Norris trip, so I didn't torque it with a torque wrench, just a get soaked with the prop saver/crescent wrench quick swap.  Prop has ~20 hours on it since I put her on last. I put the wrench on it this evening, and it tightened probably 1/16" before it got tight.  That little turn move easily though then it would tighten any further and was hard to loosen.

So I'm guessing 1 of 2 things:

1.  Just a slight gap from nut to prop caused a vibration, as any little thing that is off is a huge drivetrain vibration.  After snugging it down, it pushed the prop back fully on the taper and now it can't move again

2.  I'm just dreaming up above.  Either prop somehow got out of what or something else in the drivetrain, even though there is no evidence of damage and no previous history of issues with vibration (other than previous damaged props...none of which were anything more than a slightly bent blade).

Of note, this boat is VERY sensitive to bent props.  My last one you had to really look to find a bit of a bend on one blade but it threw everything totally out of whack.  I've never driven the boat above idle when this kind of thing happens.

 

 

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NB, after reading on here about loose prop nuts and the potential for catastrophic shaft failure at/near the prop nut I thought I would look at my friends (first time boater) Tige' prop while doing other work for him. I grabbed the prop and it had over 1/4" of slop front to rear on the shaft. I have driven that thing numerous times and never felt anything I thought of as an abnormal vibration. I think that is mostly due to the fact that when trans is engaged the prop is being seated by the torque. Of course it may vary greatly on every boat and drive train combination. On my 1235, I swear I can feel it when I hit leaves in the water with that thing! Did you check the shaft coupler? Discounting a prop strike I would work my way up the shaft checking the cutlass bearings (unlikely) to shaft coupler. A trans or VD issue is possible I suppose, but I would be more inclined to believe you have a nearly invisible prop problem if tightening didn't fix the problem. Good luck, Bill.

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I Was Actually just looking at my prop the other day and found the nut had backed off about a 1/16th.  and the keyway is pretty old so the prop had a few degrees of rotation around the shaft.  I tightened everything back up and it feels solid for now, but I need to get it back in the water tomorrow to see if everything is cool.  but the last time we were out nothing really felt out of the ordinary.  I did have some intermittent vibrations last fall.  it would only last for a minute here and there and I thought it was more likely an issue of some bad gas.

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My guess is no.  I had a very loose prop once, no vibration.  I figured it was because, when going forward, the prop is being pushed to fully seat on the taper.

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On ‎7‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 11:36 PM, Nitrousbird said:

All fixed. We have had bad weather recently and finally got to take her out. Runs perfectly again.

You can't just walk away from this thread without telling us what was "All fixed".

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2 hours ago, jgates237 said:

You can't just walk away from this thread without telling us what was "All fixed".

As in it is fine now. Fix was mentioned in the original post, listed as #1.  Only other thing it could have been was debris on the prop or shaft that came off when getting her on the trailer.

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I know this feeling of sickness.  2006 VRide with a 1235.   Wife was pulling me surfing this weekend and just after my last run she mentioned that it feel like something was grinding when she would start a pull.  Jumped in the driver seat and left all the sacs full and started off like I was pulling up a surfer.  About 1/2 way to 10.6 I felt a hard thud(we were in 60' of water.). Stopped, started again and felt it again.  Stopped again, dumped the sacs, pulled off the suck gate and headed to the dock.  Felt a pretty substantial vibration and that wife said she felt and that's was she said was the grinding.  Put the boat on the lift, jumped in and went under the boat with a mallet and adjustable wrench.  Before I started tightening I played with the prop and had 1/4-1/2" or so of free turn before the prop would catch and turn the shaft.  Pulled off the nut, pulled the prop, checked the shaft and keyway, put the prop on and tigthened the crap out of the nut.  No vibration now or thud.   Moral of the story check your nuts. 

 

Questin:. What's the true torque recommendation?

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