starsnstripers
Lieutenant
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2007
- Messages
- 1,330
Hi everyone, I'm helping a friend with his 1970s boat with a newer mercruiser 260 (350ci) Gm V-8 Bolted to a OMC stringer. We used the boat with the drive tilt in-operable, free floating drive, lifted it with a rope to load boat, (not good) The bellhousing broke away from the engine, we were in a turn and "CLUNK" at that same time an e-clip came off the throttle. We thought it was just the cable but upon inspection along with the throttle clip falling off the bellhousing was bustede away from the engine. We attempted to hand throttle at carb back to ramp and we did haveforward gear. My friend goosed it a little to hard higher than idle and "SNAP" the intermediate Shaft broke from the increase in rpm and the weight of the engine. I'm assuming the belhousing broke from the tilt being disabled and the drive free floating. Anyway we have it in the garage and Apart. Found a bell housing of which we had to cut out part of it for the starter as was the one that we're replacing was. "customized". We have two doner intermediate housings, BUT! There all different The one that broke has a bigger shaft than the other two. Do we have two 400 stringer donors and a broken 800? Also they all have different bearing setups. The intermediate housing we want to use with a small shaft has like a sealed bering with a ball bearing. the other Donor has a single cone roller bearing on the shaft. Our broken shaft housing had a double back to back cone rollor bearing setup. We were going to use the smaller shaft housing but the drive coupling from the V-6 Buick motor wont bolt to the flywheel of the 260 Merc engine. We want to use the donor inermediate housing that has the small shaft because it has a working tilt and the water outlets are not all corroded and mostly missing like the broken shaft housing.Can the Larger shaft "if we find one" fit/interchange into the housing that has the smaller shaft housing? I Know, the plan is to going to a mercruiser this winter but need to use boat for remainder of season if possible. Any Ole OMC people know if these shaft size differences are what determines the 400/800 drives? Thanks