Pick a New Engine | What to Look For | Making a Blank | Removing the Old Engine | Disconnecting Systems | Mounts and Coupler | Lifting the Old Engine | Engine Beds | Shimming | Filling Holes | Flat Mounts | Landing the Engine | Exhaust System | Other Systems | Finishing Up
Coming in for a Landing.
Now that your mounts have a nice landing spot, carefully picked out, leveled and smoothed, you can bed them down. Usually I recommend stainless lag bolts directly through the fiberglass into the wood of the stringers. Of course if you have metal engine beds, you will tackle this differently, maybe through-bolts or drill and tapping the metal. Some items to ponder: are your lags too long? Will they go through the hull when you install them? Is there access if you ever have to get in here again? Balance your needs and please don’t poke a hole in your hull. Also, make sure your mounts have at least one hole slotted, to provide some side-to-side adjustment when you are aligning the engine. If there are only round holes in the mounts, a good machine shop can slot them for you in a few minutes.
Now lower your new engine onto the mounts. Since we already checked all the dimensions using our wood blank, this should be the only time you have to do this heavy lifting. In reality, there can be a variety of reasons to lift in and out – don’t put away the A-frame or boom halyards until you’re sure everything fits. Get the engine roughly lined up to the shaft, and make sure all the mounts are at about 50% height, so you have lots of room for up and down adjustment in the alignment process.
Alignment is pursued in more detail here.
After the engine is aligned, we will hook up systems starting with the exhaust.
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