Engine mounts

[High Hopes]

Hello All,

I’m not sure if this is the best place to post this thread. This area seems kind of quiet.

I will be remounting my A4 back into my Sabre 28. Although the boat is well made, the engine mounts leave much to be desired. There are none. The engine is bolted onto a fiberglass cradle. This makes alignment somewhat problematic.

I have been looking for an after-market engine mount that eliminates the “bolt it directly to the boat” approach and provides some adjustment and vibration isolation. Does anyone have any ideas? It would have to mount below the cradle lip. The engine can’t be raised more than about a tenth of an inch.

Steve

[Phil]

Ouch, and I thought a Ranger 33 was a tight fit!

First, does your engine/shaft need alinement after bolting it into place?

Otherwise, perhaps you can cut down the existing mounting surfaces to give you room for new mounts from Moyer.

[msauntry]

I'd suggest cutting that cradle out and fiberglassing some wood bases to the hull that come up shorter than the cradle, then you can fit rubber feet to it.
Check www.triton381.com for where I got the idea from. Great site on how to repair an old boat...

[High Hopes]

Phil,

Yes, it is a tight fit. The rear is worse. Also, the rear shaft coupling is obscured by a gas tank. I am moving the tank over five inches so I can get my arms down to the engine shaft and prop shaft flanges.

Smallish bolts (5/16") were previously used to secure the engine and the original thin metal fender washers underneath the rails "caved up" and crushed the fiberglass from beneath. None of these bolts were tight when I took the engine out because the fiberglass rail had been compressed.

I widened the existing holes to 5/8". Doing so removed the fiberglass that was crushed the most. So no, the engine does not line up and the new holes (5/8") don’t even line up with each other. This is just my starting point.

I purchased 5/8” hardware for the reinstall. Washers for this heavier hardware are larger and much thicker. They will not cave under load so hopefully the stress will be distributed over a larger area of fiberglass which will be able to sustain the forces without failing.

ms,

I went to the site you suggested and wow, looks like nine miles of bad road to me! Of course, if I take this route, I will have the existing rails as a reference for new hard-points.

But even so, after looking at the work that is need for new mounts, I will use the existing rail and mount it the same way.

Thanks for your input guys. I appreciate it.

Steve

[msauntry]

You're right!
You know, after I posted it, I went back and reread the article and he does overcomplicate things. That alignment jig was just absurd.

I was just thinking its pretty easy to glass in a chunk of wood that you can use as a base for the feet like he did. If the engine is already out of the way, then you can bolt any manner of mount onto it.

I had to undo the bolts on the rear of my engine recently and found the same problems. The fiberglass was somewhat comprimised and it was a heck of a job getting those bolts off.

Happy wrenching

[High Hopes]

Update:

I used the existing engine cradle and have the engine aligned but not yet torqued down. I am lucky so far. I only had to use shims under one mount. I had to open up some of the cradle mounting holes. It isn't very pretty, but it works. Maybe the next boat will have proper mounts.

I am using thick neoprene washers under the cradle where the bolt heads are located. The bolts point up. I am hoping that these will prevent crushing the fiberglass again.

[jhwelch]

My motor is installed in a similar unwieldy fashion. It came with some
thick rectangles of rectangular bass with a hole in the middle, which does
a better job of distributing the load than a washer.

I'm about to go through the alignment process. Every time I make an
adjustment I also tighten the bolts; it makes quite a difference for me.

I also use lock-nuts. They still vibrate loose, but not as fast as
regular nuts.

-jonathan

[High Hopes]

On Saturday, I did left/right angular positioning w/out torquing down. One bolt was fitted, but loose. On Sunday, I tightened all the bolts down and the up/down angular alignment was out of whack. I added some rear shims (.010), tightened her back down, and low and behold, I was within 2 mills on the shaft flanges. It was a lot of work.

Sorry to hear that lock nuts work loose. I used them when I reinstalled the engine. The bolts are 1/2". I hope they hold.

Good luck, Johnathan.

Steve