The strut on our 1980 33 is way out of alignment. How it got that way I am not sure. This is not a "Tweek" but several degrees out. I was going to drop the strut, install a new cutlass bearing and lay some FG in where it had mounted and grind and shim as required to align the strut with the bore of the strern tube. Other have recommended I have the strut heated and bent. Still other say this is the job for a "professional". What say ye all? Thanks! Garry Elmer http://www.99main.com/~elmergw/ elmergw@99main.com
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Terry Arnold
Have you checked to make sure that the supports are supporting the hull uniformly? I have noticed with my H 33 that it is very important that the transition from suspended in slings by a travel lift to supported by keel and stands on land be carefully done so as keep load evenly distributed fore and aft and side to side. Otherwise, maldistribution of the loads can and will deform the H 33 hull significantly, including the strut geometry.
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Garry Elmer
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Sam Lust
The cause ---
It's a good bet the cause is haphazard manufacture. Mine is off a wee bit but not enough to worry about. It just makes alignment a little more critical, I would try working on the mounting surfaceas you said to get it to line up. I just can't get excited about heating and bending several times.
It's a good bet the cause is haphazard manufacture. Mine is off a wee bit but not enough to worry about. It just makes alignment a little more critical, I would try working on the mounting surfaceas you said to get it to line up. I just can't get excited about heating and bending several times.
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Allan Hadad
Bearing Install and Strut Alignment
I don't recommend heating the strut, as you really don't know where to bend it to with out a lot of trial and error and many heating cycles. Plus, you would have to have the cutlass bearing out to heat it and then re-install to check the alignment. It is better to shim and grind to get it right. Here is a description of what my wife and I did last summer (I pulled it back out of the archives). It is possible to do yourself. It all started when I was installing my new PSS dripless shaft seal. The cutlass bearing was 15 years old and seemed tight. After uncoupling from the engine, it then seemed kind of sloppy. On my H34 would have to drop the rudder to get the shaft out of the strut. That seemed like a real pain, so I took the strut off instead. That isn't bad at all, four machine screws backed with washers and goop. Only the screws were bedded. The strut fits up in a recess under the hull so that it is flush. I bought the new cutlass (1" shaft, 1.125" outer diameter, 4" length) and took it all home. There are two set screws in the side of the strut (1/4 x 20). One of mine was missing. Remove those. I put the strut in a vise and found that one of my 1/2" drive sockets was the right size to fit into the strut and push agaist the bearing . I put an extension on the socket and hit it with a hammer. It drove out. Clean the bore, chase the threads of the strut with a tap and lightly grease the new bearing. Don't get any grease on the rubber as it might swell it or cause it to degrade. It pushed right in. I installed new set screws with Loctite. Don't overtighten them as it will distort the bearing if it has a thin shell like mine. Now for the really fun part. After I reinstalled the strut in its recess I noticed that the shaft A) was cocked to the left against the stern tube (leave the nut off your packing so it is free to find its own resting point) and, B) the rubber in the cutlass bearing was squished on the lower side of the forward end of the bearing and also squished at the upper surface of the shaft at the back side. The shaft was very hard to turn. A surveyor that I had come by for my insurance warned me that it would wear out within 10 hours if I left it that way. He even had a magnifying glass with a light in it to show me. That tip alone probably was worth the survey fee that the insurance company had me cough up. I could see that the strut needed to be rotated to the right and then swung like a pendulum by shimming to relieve the pinching. The amounts would be very small as the distance would project up to where the shaft enters the hull. I first used a disk sander to take off a 1/16" off all four sides of the strut base so that it fit loosely in the recess of the hull. Then I could rotate it just slightly and the shaft would center from left to right. I then put a piece of wood inside the boat with a V cut out to support the shaft at the right vertical level. The shaft just laid in the V. and passed through the exact center of the stern tube. To set the strut at the right angle, my wife mixed up a batch of West System epoxy with microballoons (like peanut butter) and put it into the recess. We wrapped Saran wrap on the strut ( you don't want to glue it to the boat) and with the help of a 4 ft ladder, a few pieces of lumber and the jack out of my truck we supported the strut. Look at the where the cutlass bearing rubber meets the shaft very closely with a maginifying glass and you can see a slight gap all the way around the shaft on both sides of the strut. Keep tweaking it until you get it right. The shaft turns very easily at this point. Then stand back and wait 5 hours for the epoxy to cure. We just left what squeezed out until it was cured. It only took about 1/8" of epoxy at the front edge of the strut mount to get the angle we needed. We also had jammed a couple of putty knives in at the front of the strut to keep it rotated sllighty until everything cured. The last step was to pull the strut back down, take off the Saran wrap and then after repositioning it, re-drill or enlarge the holes in the hull so the screws would go back through. Just bed the holes, as you may have to remove the strut again some day. I used a Sikaflex product that is good below the waterline. I finished up the job by installing my new PSS dripless seal which appears to work great. I also changed my motor mounts. The engine alignment did take a number of hours, but It was worth it. Make sure you move the engine to the shaft, not the other way around. I could tell that all the vibration that I was used to for the last 15 years was gone. It is so smooth now. This weekend I rechecked the alignment (re-tweaked because the hull flexed in the water) and installed a Drive Saver flexible spacer between the coupling faces. I hope this helps and that you don't have to go through all the strut mounting gyrations that we had. But, if it is off, this is the time to really do it right. I can't imagine what the yard would have charged for all the man hours that we put into it. They probably wouldn't have even said anything, just put the new bearing in and bolted it to the engine. Good Luck, Allan "Alchemie" H34 SF Bay
I don't recommend heating the strut, as you really don't know where to bend it to with out a lot of trial and error and many heating cycles. Plus, you would have to have the cutlass bearing out to heat it and then re-install to check the alignment. It is better to shim and grind to get it right. Here is a description of what my wife and I did last summer (I pulled it back out of the archives). It is possible to do yourself. It all started when I was installing my new PSS dripless shaft seal. The cutlass bearing was 15 years old and seemed tight. After uncoupling from the engine, it then seemed kind of sloppy. On my H34 would have to drop the rudder to get the shaft out of the strut. That seemed like a real pain, so I took the strut off instead. That isn't bad at all, four machine screws backed with washers and goop. Only the screws were bedded. The strut fits up in a recess under the hull so that it is flush. I bought the new cutlass (1" shaft, 1.125" outer diameter, 4" length) and took it all home. There are two set screws in the side of the strut (1/4 x 20). One of mine was missing. Remove those. I put the strut in a vise and found that one of my 1/2" drive sockets was the right size to fit into the strut and push agaist the bearing . I put an extension on the socket and hit it with a hammer. It drove out. Clean the bore, chase the threads of the strut with a tap and lightly grease the new bearing. Don't get any grease on the rubber as it might swell it or cause it to degrade. It pushed right in. I installed new set screws with Loctite. Don't overtighten them as it will distort the bearing if it has a thin shell like mine. Now for the really fun part. After I reinstalled the strut in its recess I noticed that the shaft A) was cocked to the left against the stern tube (leave the nut off your packing so it is free to find its own resting point) and, B) the rubber in the cutlass bearing was squished on the lower side of the forward end of the bearing and also squished at the upper surface of the shaft at the back side. The shaft was very hard to turn. A surveyor that I had come by for my insurance warned me that it would wear out within 10 hours if I left it that way. He even had a magnifying glass with a light in it to show me. That tip alone probably was worth the survey fee that the insurance company had me cough up. I could see that the strut needed to be rotated to the right and then swung like a pendulum by shimming to relieve the pinching. The amounts would be very small as the distance would project up to where the shaft enters the hull. I first used a disk sander to take off a 1/16" off all four sides of the strut base so that it fit loosely in the recess of the hull. Then I could rotate it just slightly and the shaft would center from left to right. I then put a piece of wood inside the boat with a V cut out to support the shaft at the right vertical level. The shaft just laid in the V. and passed through the exact center of the stern tube. To set the strut at the right angle, my wife mixed up a batch of West System epoxy with microballoons (like peanut butter) and put it into the recess. We wrapped Saran wrap on the strut ( you don't want to glue it to the boat) and with the help of a 4 ft ladder, a few pieces of lumber and the jack out of my truck we supported the strut. Look at the where the cutlass bearing rubber meets the shaft very closely with a maginifying glass and you can see a slight gap all the way around the shaft on both sides of the strut. Keep tweaking it until you get it right. The shaft turns very easily at this point. Then stand back and wait 5 hours for the epoxy to cure. We just left what squeezed out until it was cured. It only took about 1/8" of epoxy at the front edge of the strut mount to get the angle we needed. We also had jammed a couple of putty knives in at the front of the strut to keep it rotated sllighty until everything cured. The last step was to pull the strut back down, take off the Saran wrap and then after repositioning it, re-drill or enlarge the holes in the hull so the screws would go back through. Just bed the holes, as you may have to remove the strut again some day. I used a Sikaflex product that is good below the waterline. I finished up the job by installing my new PSS dripless seal which appears to work great. I also changed my motor mounts. The engine alignment did take a number of hours, but It was worth it. Make sure you move the engine to the shaft, not the other way around. I could tell that all the vibration that I was used to for the last 15 years was gone. It is so smooth now. This weekend I rechecked the alignment (re-tweaked because the hull flexed in the water) and installed a Drive Saver flexible spacer between the coupling faces. I hope this helps and that you don't have to go through all the strut mounting gyrations that we had. But, if it is off, this is the time to really do it right. I can't imagine what the yard would have charged for all the man hours that we put into it. They probably wouldn't have even said anything, just put the new bearing in and bolted it to the engine. Good Luck, Allan "Alchemie" H34 SF Bay
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Don Alexander
Strut Boring
I did same as Alan H on my 376 except that, whilst the strut was off the hull, I bored it to 1½" ID and used a thicker wall Cutless bearing. Now I can draw the bearing out without needing to take the shaft out of the boat. I just took an old Cutless and cut a strip out of the side so that it slips over the prop shaft and now I can use a puller to draw the Cutless towards the free end of the shaft. The wall thickness of the original bearing was too thin to allow this method. Regards,
I did same as Alan H on my 376 except that, whilst the strut was off the hull, I bored it to 1½" ID and used a thicker wall Cutless bearing. Now I can draw the bearing out without needing to take the shaft out of the boat. I just took an old Cutless and cut a strip out of the side so that it slips over the prop shaft and now I can use a puller to draw the Cutless towards the free end of the shaft. The wall thickness of the original bearing was too thin to allow this method. Regards,
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