Columbia 36 Engine Bed

[clark800]

I'm trying to put an Atomic 4 into a 1973 Columbia 36, which was the factory engine. The owner's manual shows DF-100 engine mounts in the schematics, but when I place the mounts on the engine bed, they overhang the pedestals. I wanted to check if anyone knows how the engine was originally supposed to be mounted in the Columbia 36 or is familiar with this type of pedestal mounting.

[tenders]

Some engines are mounted on studs sticking out of the engine bed - not on those mounts you have there, which are nice but might require a lot of refitting to attach, and even more if the strut isn't angled to send the shaft to the higher location.

[ndutton]

It's hard to tell in the picture but it looks like the engine stringers have been modified pretty extensively since it came from the factory. I'm thinking you'll need to modify them back to the factory configuration to use the mounts. lat64 Russ will have the answer when he returns. He has a Columbia 36.

Columbia was big on DF-100 mounts so your research sounds correct.

[lat 64]

Greetings fellow Columbia 36er!

Just got back from chasing bears in Denali Park. Ill search my photos to get some shots of my engine mounts.
But for now; Mine were just lag bolts sticking out of the engine beds with a rubber disc about 5/8-inch thick under the pan ears. Some of the wood core in there was rotted. I replaced them and squeezed epoxy into the holes to restore some purchase for the the lag screws. I put skate wheels in place of the old rubber. Your setup looks much better. The shaft is fairly short on this boat and no cutless so there is some wiggle room for shaft alignment. The original beds with 5/8-inch rubber shims were good. I replaced with 3/4-inch urethane skate wheels. Alignment was spot-on then.

so,
Do you have a 2:1 reduction gear? Is recomended for this boat.

I can get some original specs for prop size and such. I have some original drawings. I checked my prop size against recommendations in Dave Gerr's "Propeller Handbook" and it is as close as I can tell. So the original specs will still be very good for most sailing.
The exhaust is a dry setup and very satisfactory, but I imagine would be expensive to have fabricated. A wet-style is probably in your future as most of the components are available and expertise on setup abounds here on this forum.

PM me if you want to nerd out on other C 36 stuff that would bore the rest of the gang to tears.


Welcome!

Russ

[lat 64]

Ok, here's the pic I promised.
As you can see, my engine sits low on the skate wheels. This made perfect alignment for my shaft. You may be a bit high if you use the DF-100, or it may have changed from my year of manufacture('68) to '73, so who knows, you may be good.

Where's your previous engine. Can you tell us the history? Do you have more bits from original install, or are you building it all back from scratch?

Russ

[clark800]

Sorry for the very late response, I must not have subscribed to notifications.

I finished installing the engine; I ended up putting down some white oak boards to raise the height and using some C&C style mounts from Moyer Marine with ~5in hex lag screws going through the oak board and into the pedestals below (the aft lag screws were shorter since the aft pedestals are shorter).

Almost everything engine-related was new, so it was quite a project for someone like me with no prior engine experience. I do have the reduction gear on it. I bought the boat without an engine; I don't know what happened but it used to have a Yanmar diesel in it and pretty much everything they left was broken or useless, even the shaft was broken.

I should be close to taking it out for the first sail soon! Maybe after that I can write up a summary of the odyssey.