Strut to Stern Tube Misalignment

As Vicki indicated there is a misalignment between the Cutlass bearing the Stern Tube.  The first indication of this was the wear marks on the Cutlass bearing itself.  At the front end of the Cutlass there was excessive wear on the top half of the bearing and at the back side of the Cutlass the wear was on the bottom.  I made up two nylon plugs with a .020” hole drilled in the center of each.  One plug was placed inside the aft bore of the Strut and the second was placed in the front bore of the stern tube.  I then ran a string through each hole and pulled it taught. Now I took measurements at the front of the Strut bore and the aft bore of the Stern tube.  I didn’t really have to take measurements as I could see by eye (yes even with my tri-focals on and my fifty year plus eyes) I could see that the Cutlass bore of the strut was running up.  Remember back in Grade ten when you were doing trigonometry and you said to yourself when am I ever going to use this.  Well I can say I still remember SOH-CAH-TOA!!!!!!!  I pulled out the calculator (couldn’t find the slide rule, god am I getting old) and found that the Strut bore was off half a degree to the Stern Tube.  Over sixty inches this would mean that the drive shaft was 7/16” high to the center line of the stern tube, not good!  What to do??????????

I looked at a few different options but all would only bastardize the drive line (a trade term we use when one doesn’t do the jog the right way).  The strut is now off the boat!  I will give you a post later, on how I re-aligned the strut to Stern Tube.

Launch Date is April 23/10 and Zingara has no drive shaft or impeller.

Here is a picture that makes all this nonsense worth while. It was taken on the island of Anegada BVI.