to pod or not to pod 30' bay cruiser

[Razgo-]

the video i took today the site is a bit slow to load sometimes. I am pretty sure they used a dial gauge.

[Razgo-]

After Finga took a look for me to determine the problem the following occurred.

I got the mechanic down to take a look and what i discovered was the bracket/plate underneath the box below the flange there was a large gap between that and the floor. The mechanic said that was actually bolted to the floor originally but since they had to raise up the v-drive they then had to pack between the bracket and floor.

Now what i think has happened is this.

The vibration plus normal twisting has caused the packing to crack and come out as it was gone and this in turn has caused the drive to drop down thus throwing everything out of alignment.

The mechanic used Teflon thinking it would be strong enough and it had 2 screws through the plate into the Teflon packing.

At first i would say it should have been strong enough too but i think the screws plus vibration from the bolt knocking the uni joint has cause the Teflon to crack and slowly move out underneath the bracket.

I questioned the mechanic further in regards to why they never installed an adjustment bracket and or a flexible joint.

Basically he said they did consider it and actually tried to find a flexible joint but were unable to find one.

So since there is some flex in the prop shaft and it wasn't a large diameter shaft requiring absolute precision they decided to build up the existing bracket by way of adding/welding another plate to it and then Teflon packing screwed down into the floor. He also said using a dial gauge would not have been that beneficial because the tail shaft was pitted and probably 20-30 years old and they would not have been able to get a successful reading.

So they do it by site and feeler gauges run around the flange and adjust accordingly.

I do believe this was successful if it weren't for the original issue of the bolt being too long in the flange that was knocking against the uni joint.

I think it might have been a domino effect.


With regards to getting an adjustment bracket made up he said he would have to get an engineer in to custom make one and would cost a bit to do.

With regards to will they fix it under warranty? well thats a wait and see. I told the mechanic since it was only 10 hrs and the cause may have come from that bolt knocking against the uni joint it should be fixed under warranty.

He said he will put it to the owner and see what he says. He also said but it is a timber boat prone to this sort of thing. But that won't wear with me because regardless of boat age and timber the job only lasted 10 hrs.

So i await to see if they will fix it under job warranty or not.

Oh and he said he would just grind that bolt back a bit so it misses the uni joint.

At least i know it's not major and an easy fix anyhow so thats good news.

see pic attached to see where i mean. see the top arrow to see the screw that was holding the teflon in place.

[Chimo]

Unbelievable!!!!

Chimo

[Razgo-]

added pic to show the bracket i am talking about.

[finga]

Unbelievable!!!!

Chimo

You should have been there to see it first hand. And your right
First of all it's good to meet you Russel and to have a gander of 'Rumrunner'.

The two flanges of the coupling in question on the prop shaft when they were pulled apart were out of square by 5mm and about a 3mm drop. This is across a face of only about 132mm
The bolt in question that's hitting the uni joint is the grub screw/bolt holding the flange to the prop shaft. or was the the bolt holding the flange to the v-drive??? anyways it hits the uni joint of the tailshaft (just above) from the motor to the v-drive. (it's not the bolt shown in the picture above but it's mate on the same flange. The other one is longer still)
This actually causes flex in the 1" prop shaft to the degree that we could see the prop shaft flexing and the prop tube gland moving up and down with each bump on each revolution. Lucky the gland is on a flexible hose.
Both the flanges of the coupling had also become loose on their respective shafts from this thump, thump, thumping.
IMO this bumping bolt should have stuck out like the proverbial as it's a long bolt with a lock nut on it as well (but not used).
It must be under warranty as what they did was basically wrong.
Russel asked about the knock and they had another gander and said that's all they can do. IMO they should have looked closer especially considering the money just spent.
Anyways it was good to find the problem which can be remedied reasonably easily
Don't know about the packing bit. Where are the stresses going to then?? I hope not the v-drive itself or the timber which the mounts are bolted to.
And the flange on the v-drive is already a bit above the flange on the prop shaft. Packing the v-drive will only make this problem worse. There will be more preload on the prop shaft from the height diffference. The v-drive needs to be tilted and lowered slightly for proper alignment IMO. (but who am I but a broken down sparky )
Cheers until next time we catch up Russel

[Razgo-]

Thanks finga, the mechanic said he felt if they installed an adjustment bracket that the stress might be too much? I am guessing he stress load does go into the timber.

As i am no expert it can be difficult for me to relay the possible problems to the mechanic for discussion.

hmmmm....... i never thought about it being too much stress load on the timber if he repacks it under the bracket to the floor? as noted it was originally bolted direct to the floow so i thought that might have been normal?

hmmmm..... buggered if i know now.

[station-rat]

"hmmmm....... I never thought about it being too much stress load on the timber if he repacks it under the bracket to the floor"
Hi Russell
I would have thought there would be more stress on the timber with it jumping around the way it was. With the box setup and aligned correctly ( adjustable brackets or steel shims) there should not be and abnormal stresses aplied to any other part of the boat. Just my 35 years experience as heavy equipment fitter
Station-rat

[finga]

"hmmmm....... I never thought about it being too much stress load on the timber if he repacks it under the bracket to the floor"
Hi Russell
I would have thought there would be more stress on the timber with it jumping around the way it was. With the box setup and aligned correctly ( adjustable brackets or steel shims) there should not be and abnormal stresses aplied to any other part of the boat. Just my 35 years experience as heavy equipment fitter
Station-rat

Exactly my thoughts.

[Razgo-]

Ok i didn't get it at first but now i understand that your saying by using packing to help prop/align the shaft this is putting stress on the prop.

Ok so i ring onshore marine and get the boss.

He starts telling me it is out of the 30 day warranty and therefore isn't covered.

And i said even though the mechanic knew the knocking noise was their and admitted to it it should be covered.

Of course he then says he hasn't admitted to anything to him as he hasn't spoken to him in depth yet. So i say well ok go talk to him and regardless why would i lie? the mechanic had no problem admitting he heard the knocking after the sea trial and saying he didn't know what it was because well he simply didn't know.

Now the boss man says well if it was such an issue then it should have been reported back to him.

So i say well if the mechanic didn't feel it was an issue at the time then why would i think it was an issue and complain about it?

I took it in god faith the mechanic would take care of it if it was a problem.


Basically the conversation just kept going in circles to no avail.

He then says ok well they should at least remove the offending bolt and put a proper grub screw in so it doesn't stick out at all.

Also it wasn't Teflon it was apparently recycled milk bottles. It was a thick black plastic substance.


Anyhow i stood my ground and kept calm but told him i had no confidence in you doing the job now as i am not sure this packing under the bracket is the solution.

He told me straight up that an adjustment bracket would cost way too much money to get made and that it wasn't needed. He also insisted that because of the shaft form the motor to v-drive is on uni joints that that will take up any slack allowing for any misalignment.

He then also insisted that there was a lot of hours spent on trying to fix it that they felt they had done all that could be done.

I re interpret this as saying "we ain't spending any more time on it" piss it off.

so i believe this is why the mechanic never investigated the original knocking noise as i think he was told just to push the job out. i could be wrong i dunno.

so anyway i told him to leave it with me as i will get someone else to look at it as i do not think they are taking the right approach in dealing with the problem.

So i am back to square one.

what do i do?

seek out a company to come and inspect to make this adjustment bracket?

what would the cost be? what do they mean by expensive? its just a bit of steel with slots cut in it?

[Razgo-]

what annoys me is he is trying to say to me its out of waranty so if you don't catch our bodgy job within 30 days your not covered.

I mean its not like the bodgy bolt sticking out the side is going to shrink or grow after 30 days.

[finga]

Mate, that is appalling in the way your been treated.
After all the money you've spent with them and, more or less, it's get nicked.
Tell all your mates down there in no uncertain terms.
There's other mechanics around and if the boating industry is in that much strife then heaven is not going to help them.
Station-rat is definitely on the right track. That's why I had the washers on the trolley

I thought we'd be able to do a bit of shimming to align but as the 2 mounts already there are on opposite sides of the v-drive and are on the sides that the v-drive needs to be twisted to be able to align they're effectively locking the v-drive in this position at the moment otherwise we would have done that today. Bugger it
Better explained by a picture I think.
The top of the v-drive has to go into the top cross member you can see and the bottom of the v-drive has to go into the bottom cross member you can see at the bottom of the picture. The whole v-drive has to go down about 3-5mm as well.

[Razgo-]

Hi finga, by lowering the drive will that effect the shaft/uni joints?

what the boss mechanic was telling me was they had to keep going higher.

He also said just as long as the prop shaft aligned correctly the rest doesn't matter as there is flex in the uni joints in the top shaft.

But that kind of contradicts the whole purpose of balance and alignment?

If there is even the slightest amount of stress pushed onto the uni joints even if there is flex there isn't it just a matter of time before wear will occur?

He kept going on about how that top shaft/uni joints isn't normally there or that type of more and how they had to move the motor to help with the alignment etc...

It was like he was winging about having to figure things out or something.

[station-rat]

Hi Finga
Have I got this right from the photo's
The bottom shaft has the fixed coupling and that is the prop shaft
The top shaft is the drive with the uni joint
If this is correct , then align the coupling on the box with the coupling on the prop shaft and the drive shaft with the uni joints will look after it's self.
It would seam the original problem with the prop shaft and key wearing will be caused from the alignment problems
Station-rat

[PinHead]

After Finga took a look for me to determine the problem the following occurred.

I got the mechanic down to take a look and what i discovered was the bracket/plate underneath the box below the flange there was a large gap between that and the floor. The mechanic said that was actually bolted to the floor originally but since they had to raise up the v-drive they then had to pack between the bracket and floor.

Now what i think has happened is this.

The vibration plus normal twisting has caused the packing to crack and come out as it was gone and this in turn has caused the drive to drop down thus throwing everything out of alignment.

The mechanic used Teflon thinking it would be strong enough and it had 2 screws through the plate into the Teflon packing.

At first i would say it should have been strong enough too but i think the screws plus vibration from the bolt knocking the uni joint has cause the Teflon to crack and slowly move out underneath the bracket.

I questioned the mechanic further in regards to why they never installed an adjustment bracket and or a flexible joint.

Basically he said they did consider it and actually tried to find a flexible joint but were unable to find one.

So since there is some flex in the prop shaft and it wasn't a large diameter shaft requiring absolute precision they decided to build up the existing bracket by way of adding/welding another plate to it and then Teflon packing screwed down into the floor. He also said using a dial gauge would not have been that beneficial because the tail shaft was pitted and probably 20-30 years old and they would not have been able to get a successful reading.

So they do it by site and feeler gauges run around the flange and adjust accordingly.

I do believe this was successful if it weren't for the original issue of the bolt being too long in the flange that was knocking against the uni joint.

I think it might have been a domino effect.


With regards to getting an adjustment bracket made up he said he would have to get an engineer in to custom make one and would cost a bit to do.

With regards to will they fix it under warranty? well thats a wait and see. I told the mechanic since it was only 10 hrs and the cause may have come from that bolt knocking against the uni joint it should be fixed under warranty.

He said he will put it to the owner and see what he says. He also said but it is a timber boat prone to this sort of thing. But that won't wear with me because regardless of boat age and timber the job only lasted 10 hrs.

So i await to see if they will fix it under job warranty or not.

Oh and he said he would just grind that bolt back a bit so it misses the uni joint.

At least i know it's not major and an easy fix anyhow so thats good news.

see pic attached to see where i mean. see the top arrow to see the screw that was holding the teflon in place.

That alone says the mechanic is incompetent...you do an alignment by reading the gap between the 2 faces of the coupling..nothing to do with the shaft.

I could not put on here what I would be saying to the manager.

[Razgo-]

well the funny thing is he went on to say he uses the feeler gauges on the 2 faces of the coupling as you say.

But he also said he knew the plates were not flat and you could clearly see it looked like it was wobbling.

so now i suspect thats why the feeler gauges as the plates were not perfectly round either.

so yeah why he pointed to the shaft for the dial gauge i dunno. But i do know who got the shaft