Outdrive alignment.

[dmnolan]

I have a 1976 Searay SRB 240 weekender.
It has a 351 Ford motor. And if a pre alpha. Type MC ? I believe it’s called outdrive.

I think the alignment bar I bought is tooo large a diameter. it’s as big as the of of the spline in the out drive. I think it needs to be smaller than the diameter at the bottom of spline grooves.

Anyone know what the right diameter is??
I can get it turned down

 

[dmnolan]

Figured it out!

 

[Espos4]

Great!

Can you post the solution?
This forum is a great resource and maybe some day in the future someone else will come here with the same issue.

 

[dmnolan]

 

[dmnolan]

Still struggling with alignment.
I got myself a straight 1” piece of round stock to use as a prealignment tool.

I can put it into the splint and see how centered it is in the bearing. When I got the motor postitiined to center the 1” bar. I changed Over to the alignment bar that fits spline and bearing.

The bar is hitting high on the drive coupling. It feels like the motor in the rear is sitting at least 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch low??

Don’t know how that can be?? There is no adjustment in the back.

Any experience/ help with this??

 

[scoflaw]

No adjustment in the rear. You could have worn parts back there or your bearing isn't gimbled correctly. New bearings are very stiff to move

 

[dmnolan]

New bushings and a rebuilt gimble housing. All new hardware.
Did see that I had the spacer and washer on the rear mount bolts reversed. Had spacer in top of washers. This may have been pushing the mount down around the bushings.

Swapped that. Seems better. Need to adjust front height again and see if it comes in.

We shall see.

 

[dmnolan]

Still not quite right.
I found this with original install documents.
It seems to say I should muscle the bearing around with the alignment tool to get it to align with coupling???

 

[scoflaw]

With that 1" bar inserted all the way, you should be able to tell if the gimbal is angled correctly. New ones are stiff.

Sure you have the correct alignment bar ? I've had to beat the bar in to get that gimble aligned on some. Once all the way in you want to beat the bar in all 4 directions. Have you rotated your engine 180* and tried it ?

 

[Espos4]

Still not quite right.
I found this with original install documents.
It seems to say I should muscle the bearing around with the alignment tool to get it to align with coupling???

This doesn't mean to "muscle it around". It means you should rotate the bar so the splines can engage.

 

[scoflaw]

This doesn't mean to "muscle it around". It means you should rotate the bar so the splines can engage.

There are no splines on the bar so rotating the bar would do jack squat. Muscle up down left right . Or maybe we have a diff definition of rotate ?

 

[dmnolan]

SO. I finally have this figured out.
Here the problem. I couldn't accept the directions I was finding about achieving alignment of the bearing to the drive coupling as I was only familiar with traditional straight bearings.
Now that I know that it is a "Gimble" bearing and what that means, it all makes sense to me.

Saturday I will align bearing to drive hub with alignment bar to get it to enter the splines. Then I will adjust the motor mounts (front) to assure it slides in and out easily.

 

[dmnolan]

So. Today I was able to get the alignment bar centered on the drive hub. With a little manipulation of fumble bearing.

Now I can get the alignment bar all the way into the drive hub. With some adjustment I think I have the motor height close.

At this point I am hitting hard still on the 7-8 o’clock location on the bar.

Should I add height to the starboard front motor mount and leave the port one where it is??

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[scoflaw]

This is how it goes. with both rear mounts torqued... lower the front with a hoist centrally located on the front of the motor. Get your alignment then while the engine is suspended. This will tell you if 1 of your front mounts is higher than the other, then tighten up the front mounts. Or you can randomly dick about

 

[dmnolan]

This is how it goes. with both rear mounts torqued... lower the front with a hoist centrally located on the front of the motor. Get your alignment then while the engine is suspended. This will tell you if 1 of your front mounts is higher than the other, then tighten up the front mounts. Or you can randomly dick about

 

[dmnolan]

Yeah I am using a lift plate on the intake manifold.
I was doing the adjustments with the motor hanging from my engine lift. It was hard to do fine adjustments so when I was close I dropped the front mounts down and snugged em up. Then I made adjustments from there.

Thanks. Will look at lifting again and checking the side to side.