Advice and Things to Watch out for

[DrB]

I need to replace the packing in my Stuffing Box. While I am at it, I am going to replace the hose bellows and possibly the cutlass bearing. The boat is on the hard and is a 1979 Pearson 10M.

Since I will need to remove the shaft to do this, anyone have any tips on how to do this and maintain the alignment to the tranny? I was thinking of marking the shaft position with the tranny removing the shaft from the tranny coupling, sliding it out the back. When re-installing, sliding it back in, aligning the marks and retightening.

Does this sound correct?

DrB

[erps]

There is a pretty good chance that the shaft is keyed to the coupling, so that will only go on one way. You may want to mark the coupling halves instead.

After you replace the cutlass bearing and before you replace the hose bellows, check to see if the shaft is centered in the shaft tube. If it's not, it would be a good time to raise or lower the engine to get that centered. After putting it all back together and getting an initial alignment done, leave the coupling bolts loose, so you can do a final alignment check when the boat is back in the water. Alignment can change a bit depending on how the hull was blocked.