New to the 310 club and Engine Mounts.... Again...

[BillyK]

Hi all... i've joined the 310 owners club with a 2004! and right out of the gate i need to install new mounts.. i've read through all the engine mount threads and i haven't seen anyone talking about how an after market set worked out.. Right now my original mounts are sagging to the point where the shaft is tapping the log at various RPMs and the cutlass is showing vertical wear. The surveyor recommended replacing the mounts since they've dropped quite a bit..

so here's the kicker.. the OEM mounts are now $240 a piece and i'm having a hard time spending $960 on oem mounts. it just feels wrong at that price.. especially when other mounts are half the cost or less.. i'm ok with doing it right and spending the money to do it right, but that price just feels wrong.

Has anyone gone with aftermarket mounts and if so... how have they worked out?

 

[JRT]

Congrats! Can't give you the feedback, but there are others that have done this that will chime in. Any chance you could post pictures of the issue? I'd sure like to see what that looks like as mine do not appear to have any issues or problems now but am always interested to learn how to recognize issues early.

 

[Michael Davis]

I've replaced mine with after-market ones. Engine feels smoother so the old ones were certainly dead. I find OEM, for the most part, over priced and no better then after market.

 

[JRT]

what aftermarket do you recommend?

 

[Michael Davis]

what aftermarket do you recommend?

Was on the last boat. Don't remember the brand but ordered them through West Marine. I'm sure Defender or any other marine supply place would make a recommendation. They need to know what your engine and transmission weight to get it right.

 

[BillyK]

Congrats! Can't give you the feedback, but there are others that have done this that will chime in. Any chance you could post pictures of the issue? I'd sure like to see what that looks like as mine do not appear to have any issues or problems now but am always interested to learn how to recognize issues early.

In the pictures it does look like the mounts have squashed down quite a bit.. they still hold the engine fine under load though.. But since they are 16 years old and i'm planning a few long trips next season i'm considering replacing them.

 

[JK_Boston_Catalina310]

This is from Mainesail's article on motor mounts.

Motor Mounts
The red mount on the right is an older style Westerbeke/Universal factory motor mount. They are well designed, robust and do a very good job of isolating vibrations despite their rather expensive price tag. That red one had 2782 hours on it and the two failed mounts to the left are low hour mounts that had already been replaced once before.

There are features of the Westerbeke/Universal mount that make them well worth the money:

1- You can’t physically twist the stud inside the mount because it is welded directly to the mount cap.

2- The feet are encapsulated in molded rubber helping to minimize noise and vibration transmission to the hull.

3- The metal cap prevents engine oils from eating away at the rubber by shielding it.

4- The mount is fail safe and designed to survive an inversion of the boat without the motor separating from the mounts.

In short I am not a big fan of the two mounts to the left and I have seen the same type of failures repeated prematurely a number of times.

Having read the above, I opted for OEM mounts. I did add a 1/2 inch thick stainless steel plate under the forward mounts since the original setup required the mounts to be near the top of the studs.

They are pricey but sometimes that is how it is for quality.

I think the original mounts failed prematurely because the alignment was off from the factory. This seems to have been common on a number of boats. We also went through 2 cutlass bearings in 600 hours. Since then we got 1300 hours on the next cutlass bearings. Probably didn't need it but we don't haul that often and I was replacing the PSS bellows it was a cheap preventative maintenance item.

 

[LakeOntario270]

Based on the picture on the Westerbeke web sight for my 20B Two, my replacement mount is a very generic looking isolator (Westerbeke term for engine mount). I had what looked like the red mount in the picture and they were so loose only gravity held them down. Do your research. I used Cushyfloat.

 

[BillyK]

I had what looked like the red mount in the picture and they were so loose only gravity held them down. Do your research. I used Cushyfloat.

how are the Cushyfloats working out?

 

[LakeOntario270]

My Cushyfloats are working fine. The engine is much smoother than before except I have to avoid 2000 - 2200 rpm because of a resonance at that speed range. The thing I originally overlooked was the original mounting bolt to the engine was 16 mm and the new mount had a 12 mm bolt. I was able to buy an adapter bolt, for an outrageous amount, that went from 12mm to 16 mm.

The mounting holes had a different spacing than the original mounts so I had a friend at work make 4 adapter plates so I could use the same holes. It might have been easier to get a larger mount with a softer rubber so everything would line up. I picked the mount based on weight, 200 lbs.

 

[KZW]

This is from Mainesail's article on motor mounts.

Motor Mounts
In short I am not a big fan of the two mounts to the left and I have seen the same type of failures repeated prematurely a number of times.

Having read the above, I opted for OEM mounts. I did add a 1/2 inch thick stainless steel plate under the forward mounts since the original setup required the mounts to be near the top of the studs.

Where did you get them?

 

[JK_Boston_Catalina310]

I order all my Westerbeke parts from Hansen Marine in Marblehead MA.