1935 Richardson 32' Cruisabout - Motor Mount issues

[Tangusso]

I have a 32' Richardson cruiser. She was repowered in the early 1960's with a 4 cylinder Perkins diesel. While crawling about in the bilge (one of my favorite hobbies) I noticed the front motor mounts are very torn up, literally. The elastomer (looks like silicone, though feels like a hard rubber) portion of the mount is fairly shredded. I'm guessing I can find some similar replacement mounts with the help of a local marina or auto parts supplier, but my question is this; How do I ensure that nothing is out of alignment when I replace the mounts? Is there a procedure to properly shim the forward mounts and verify the angle and alignment of the motor, gearbox, and shaft?

[mucrewbtp]

Depending how long your shaft couple has been fastened to the drive flange and how dis-inclined it is to separate you could try using a feeler gauge. Back off the bolts on the coupler just enough to slide it back a bit. Maybe .020" or so. Use a feeler gauge to check all around the coupler it should be the same everywhere. If when loosened the gap between the coupler halves is greater on the top then the bottom you would know to shim the front of the engine up. Likewise for port and starboard alignment.

Regards,
Mike

[Tangusso]

Thank you Mike. I knew there was an answer simpler than what I would have come up with! I appreciate the help.

[mucrewbtp]

No problem, the tricky bit will be getting the coupler halves separated. When I pulled the engines out of my project it took quite a bit of persuading to get them to let go. I hope you have an easier time than I did. Maybe put a drip pan underneath the coupler and give it a few soakings with PB Blaster for a couple days before you try and split the coupler. Let us know how it goes and take pictures.

-Mike

[Tangusso]

The coupler looks pretty clean. In fact the entire engine room is pretty clean, so here hoping it comes apart easily. I will let you know. I don't seem to be able to resize my pics small enough to have them upload.

[mucrewbtp]

To post pictures in the forum you will have to host them off-site with a free account at www.photobucket.com after you upload there go to the album and hover the mouse over the picture and a box will pop up with links, the bottom one i think is the web link. Copy that and then in the forum when you click the add picture button you choose the insert from URL tab. Paste the link in the box but make sure the little check box that says retrieve and reference locally is UN-CHECKED. The forum won't host pictures of any size, thats why it always comes back and syas its too big. You can post pictures of any size and resolution with the above method. I usually resize mine to about 1000-1200 pixels in width to fit on a normal screen size.

Regards,
Mike

[Tangusso]

Let me know if this works...

[Tangusso]

Here's a link to an album I attempted to set up.... http://s1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc428/stangusso/

[Tom Freeman]

Great to see some pictures of a sister ship. Feeler gauge is the way to go as Mike outlined.

[Slacko]

You should also check that the 2 flanges are perpendicular to the shaft.
This is done by rotating each flange individually through 360 deg, checking that the feeler gap doesn't change as it rotates.
They are probably OK because it isn't a new install, but you are relying on the installer having got this right at the time.
The boat should be in the water for these test as well.