Vibration!

[Brad]

HI ALL: I have a Cat 30. It has a 2 cyl dsl. I have had some vibration for the last year. I checked the outher day as the vibration really increaced. I found that I had 3 broken motor mounts! One had been broken a quite a while as it was smoothed off pretty good. The outher 2 were fresh breaks. I insalled 4 new engine mounts and set the alinment with a feeler gauge to .1000 between the trans and shaft. Its pretty smooth but we hear a slight banging, seems to be comming from below the wheel. We do get some vibs around 1800 but is very smooth from 2100 up 2900. Stuffing box dose not move much when she is running. What is under the hose aft the stuffing box?, is there a bearing? Could this be the strut bearing? There is no whine or squeal. I ran the engine about 10 miles with the broken mounts to get back to the dock. We did this a very low rpm.......... hmm any ideas .... thax Brad ( S.V. Ballerina)

 

[Ron Brassord]

Check the cutlass bearing

With the engine out of line with the broken motor mounts, damage could have been done to the cutlass bearing, especially if you hear a noise from that area. A swim under the boat to try to wriggle the shaft can tell you a lot The shaft exits the hull through the rubber shaftlog hose, and there is no bearing. Do you mean you set the alignment to .0010, or .0001? [Ten thousands or one thousands} A setting of .0003 to .0005 is fine, but .0010 is a bit large. good sailing Ron B