K75 motor mounts.

[SV Sand Pebble]

  After paying the price for my raw water pump leaking and rusting out my oil pan, I replaced both the pump and oil pan. At the same time I attempted to replace the old motor mounts with four K75 motor mounts. After finding out I did not have enough horizontal movement to align the drive shaft to 0.003 I had about 0.008 port side I attempted to waller out the holes in the mounts leaving very little meat left, I could only get it down to about 0.005 and still have vibrations in the cockpit floor over 1400 RPM.
  Question: am I not better just sucking it up and buying the original very well slotted mounts for $201.00 each plus shipping then going through Epoxying in the old holes and drilling new ones and yet still having no real horizontal adjustment. Anyone else tackled this problem and went back to the old mounts? Thanks.
  George

[Ron Hill]

George : You're the FIRST person with a M25XP engine in a C34 (1987? I'll guess?) that can't get the mounts in place to allow engine alignment!??!
Are you using the correct holes in the engine mount brackets??

Please send a picture

A thought

[SV Sand Pebble]

  Thank you Ron for getting back to me on this. If it's not raining today I'm going to take another wack at this and I will take some pictures. Are you pointing out that the K75 mounts the holes are not straight Accross from each other? I notice that and attempted to align them straight along and parallel to both the engine and the ledge of the mounting surface. But I must admit you triggered in me the possible thought I have something wrong and I better take a new look and make sure I'm not missing something. I'm getting really good at jacking up the engine lol. Yes 1987. I must be in the correct engine bracket holes to be so close to being aligned. Yet as said above your words have triggered me to give a closer inspection if I'm not missing something.

[Ron Hill]

George : As I recall there are two holes in the engine bracket for an engine mount !!  Just want to make sure that you are using the correct holes!!

A thought

[SV Sand Pebble]

  Hi Ron

  Went to the boat today, jacked up the engine and went to each mount and made sure that it had the best alignment possible with the existing lag bolt holes. Upon dropping the motor back down still the same problem. On the port side it does not matter what I attempt to do with little to no gap at 12 noon, 3 or 6 o'clock I'm between 0.005 and 0.006 at 9 pm. I can find no adjustment that changes this except a few thousands more open. I also turn the flange and all bolt holes open to about 0.005 at 9 pm. Any thoughts, am I still missing something? I don't know how to add pictures yet, but I'll try. Also in a few days I will test my boat and see where my efforts landed me. No worries, if it's still way off I will shoot myself.

[Stu Jackson]

Posting and RESIZING Photos 101  http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,3701.0.html

iPhone Photo Flipping 101  https://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,11199.0.html

[SV Sand Pebble]

  Thank you for pointing out how I may find away to post pictures. I must admit I'm a little beat to figure it out tonight but again thank you for your effort to help me.

  George

[ewengstrom]

George,
Took me a while to figure out that resizing photos makes posting them MUCH easier. Seems our phones take nice BIG photos (size wise) but reducing them way down doesn't hurt one bit. I use a separate app on my phone to accomplish this for this site only and while it's another step to do it, the process isn't terrible and those photos really help.
FYI, I also have the M25XP and replaced the mounts with K75's a few years back and they will work. Seems you've probably run into that 1 out of 100 that really have to struggle to make it work. (congratulations are probably not in order...I'll skip that part) 
On another FYI, one of my bolts on the front starboard mount was broken off about 1/2" inside the engine bed so after I'd enlarged the hole big enough to extract the broken bolt I then whittled down and epoxied a piece of teak in there and then re-drilled it. Simple fix and it has worked for three years.....that might be something you try if in the end you find the mounting holes are just too far to one side.

[SV Sand Pebble]

  Thanks for the response Eric.

  In a sense I'm very fortunate that my lag bolt spots are in very good shape and just for good measure I was able to get bolts about a 1/2" longer at a bolt house in Los Angeles so I'm holding tight. Just for information to anyone doing this job. At harbor freight I purchased for another job a 3/8" ratchet that is triple jointed. This ratchet makes all the difference in the world, that and both standard and deep 9/16" sockets go a long way into making this job a little easier. I just spent $10,000 on new canvas for the dodger plus an added Bimini hand rail covers, covers for everything. If it was not for these guys working on my boat today I would take her out for a test run. If I get her out on Friday or Saturday and I still get the vibration, a rubbing sound (not good) I think I may put an end to this torture, and go back to the original style of motor mounts, which are definitely extremely slotted for some horizontal movement. For now I'll just keep on praying. I've gone as far as leaving all the lag bolt loose just a little and then attempting to use a 4 foot prybar to align the motor to the prop shaft. I have noticed that the motor mount mounting holes do not run parallel to the mounting surface. They're all just a little bit out here and there. Thanks again.

[SV Sand Pebble]

  Ron

  Hopefully I'm successful and post a few pictures. Notice the nuts missing in the front mounts. Dang if one nut just rolled into the front drain hole to the bilge. The other is now a sample for a new nut. Oh well! I will attempt to get 4 extra nuts to lock nuts together then mark if successful.

[Jim Hardesty]

On the port side it does not matter what I attempt to do with little to no gap at 12 noon, 3 or 6 o'clock I'm between 0.005 and 0.006 at 9 pm. I can find no adjustment that changes this except a few thousands more open. I also turn the flange and all bolt holes open to about 0.005 at 9 pm. Any thoughts, am I still missing something? I don't know how to add pictures yet, but I'll try. Also in a few days I will test my boat and see where my efforts landed me. No worries, if it's still way off I will shoot myself.

Shooting yourself won't help with the alignment.    
It does take a lot of patience. 
It's always easy for me to get it close, but then getting it just right can be very evasive.  One thing that comes to me is, what is the condition of your cutlass bearing?  If it's not tight the rotation of the shaft will not repeat.  ie, As one end of the shaft moves up, down and sideways the other end follows.  I think it's impossible to get a proper alignment with a worn cutlass bearing.
Jim

[SV Sand Pebble]

  Thanks for the response Jim, at this point I will not rule out anything. Everything was fine till I neglected a sea water leak on my raw water pump before going into surgery. Once out it had rusted a bleeding hole in my oil pan. I changed my water pump, oil pan and now motor mounts. Outside of that I did not seem to have an alignment problem before I changed out the mounts, just typical stair vibration here and there.

[Ron Hill]

George : Are you in the water or on the Hard - because that can make alot of difference. 
If on the hard you need to realign the engine after the boat is back in the water and let the hull warp back into shape for 2 days!!  That way you get a true alignment!!

A few thoughts

[SV Sand Pebble]

   
  A great question, being new to boating/sailing only 4 years now I do not think about these things so I'm glad people like you do. I am in the water, getting in late this afternoon I had a chance to run the motor in gear both forward and reverse against the dock lines. I only went up to 1200 RPM in fear I may tear off a cleat. At this point, there was absolutely no vibration and I took the risk of jumping downstairs to the back cabin and things looked OK. Tomorrow I will take her on a little sea trial and see how that goes. I still have the 5 to 6000s off but I do feel up and down. I'm better aligned to the prop shaft. I have worked as an electrical contractor all my life mostly with machine installations and repairs, but must admit boats are New World but things do work the same. I appreciate everyone's feedback I must admit I'm hoping for a miracle lol do you know you just take it out and it works.

[SV Sand Pebble]

  My sea trial for my shaft alignment failed today. Between 800 and 1500 RPM really good, could motor at 4.8 knots. 1600 RPM and above the return of the heavy vibration. The vibration from behind the steering wheel under my right foot and along the starboard aft wall. I went below made sure Nothing was just rattling. I open the aft locker and made sure nothing there was just loose and rattling. Because I can get
  12, 3, and 6 PM under 0.003 and 9 PM is like 0.007 or 8 on the shaft flange I made the decision today to suck it up and purchase the original style of motor mounts with the large slots to bring my alignment into tolerance. I hope I do not have cutlass bearing problems but in the end the original expensive motor mounts took my boat 37 years and about 2000 hours. So it's one more time hoisting the motor and R and R the mounts. I just feel I must do something different to get a different result. I want to thank everyone got your thoughts and insights. I will post in about two weeks when I Had a chance to complete this job.
  I have been meaning to post, share some pictures of some of my upgrades with all here. Basically rewired my boat with all victron chargers and Bluetooth devices, radar and a complete windlass install with forward and aft controls. Thanks Stu for your wiring diagram here, I went with it and added my own twist.