Motor out of alignment

[Dan01543]

Hey everyone I'm back so a month ago I replaced my bellows and gimbal bearing. Well now my gimbal bearing is making a scratching noise but not to bad when I did the job the first time I had a hell of a time pulling my outdrive. My cousin had told me that my motor was too low and had to be raised up in the front. He's been around boats all his life since 15 and he's 65 now.when I went to install my outdrive I couldn't get it to go in or would only go in to where the driveshaft met the motor. So I lowered the front of my motor buy turning the nuts on the motor mounts and the motor went down to where I could get my outdrive back in and on the boat. And a month later it's making the same sound as before. So does anyone know the proper height that my motor should be sitting in order for everything to go smoothly.it be the 2 adjustable motor mounts on the left and right sides and not the 2 in the back.how many inches should there be between the motor mount on the floor and the topside of the motor mount on the motor. Or how many threads total should I have on each motor mount. Thank you

 

[Bt Doctur]

To leave room for adjustment have atleast 1 inch above the top nut.
To actually set the exact height you will need ,tighten the rear mounts ,support the front of the engine by the lift ring on the thermostat housing and raise or lower the front if the engine until the alignment bar goes in. Leaving it at this setting raise or lower the nuts to fit the mounts .and install front mount lags
Once lagged, do the final alignment check.

 

[Dan01543]

but what happens if u don't have a engine hoist to do it?

 

[Dan01543]

And the alignment tool do they make one and if they do where could I get it from.

 

[Bt Doctur]

Some have used a small bottle jack against the harmonic balancer to lift the engine enough to loosen the nuts downward, then use the jack to raise or lower the engine , then adjust the nuts to match. The Volvo or Merc one should work or a very lightly used inputshaft from a drive .

 

[Dan01543]

So once I have that tool made it should slide right through the gimbal bearing and right into the back of the motor without any problems. And it shouldn't be hard to slide in the back of the boat?

 

[BRICH1260]

You can buy a universal motor alignment bar on ebay for around $100. They are a valuable tool to have.

 

[Lou C]

That tool is a must have to get the engine aligned….

 

[Dan01543]

So would this cause my gimbal bearing to wear out quicker. I'm asking because before I bought the boat whoever worked on it didn't know what they were doing and this is why I'm having this problem. I think my motor has been replaced. Out of 20 years of boating I've never had this problem before.

 

[Horigan]

Yes, a motor out of alignment will wear out the gimbal bearing.

 

[Scott Danforth]

And the alignment tool do they make one and if they do where could I get it from.

thousands of places make alignment tools for Mercruiser/OMC/Volvo drives. they are all the same

 

[Scott Danforth]

So would this cause my gimbal bearing to wear out quicker. I'm asking because before I bought the boat whoever worked on it didn't know what they were doing and this is why I'm having this problem. I think my motor has been replaced. Out of 20 years of boating I've never had this problem before.

yes, a motor out of alignment will wear your gimbal bearing and take out your coupler

if you read your manual, you should be pulling your drive every year and checking alignment