"Rosalie B." wrote in message
. ..
Jere Lull wrote:

On 2008-06-22 13:43:44 -0400, Rosalie B. said:

Bob thinks cutlass bearing deteriorating and letting the prop shaft
vibrate. It is about 9 years old.

Oh, just a youngster ;-) We got a new one 15 years ago and it's still
tight -- a check I do each spring just before I change the zincs.

I'm still leaning towards something on the prop. As I read your
account, it sounded like what I hear and feel when the prop cavitates
when we try to punch through waves and get stopped dead in our tracks,
but you didn't have appreciable wind or waves, and you're less at the
mercy of such with your heft.

Keep us up to date, as I'm curious what the cause is.

We pulled the boat yesterday and Bob said the cutlass bearing was
extremely loose and he is pretty sure that was the problem. He said
it was vibrating again on the way over to the haul slip, and there was
nothing on the prop except some barnacles..

He had put a vibration damper spacer in and he thinks he didn't get
the cutlass bearing far enough back to account for that.

However, someone has just emailed me and explained that they change
the cutlass bearing every time they haul the boat as a precaution.
(They only haul about every two years)

The cutlass bearing was deteriorated. I've heard from folks that say
theirs failed in 3 years but normally they lasted them 5-6 years.

Today, he put the cutlass bearing back on the boat, and I came down to
help him put the flange back on. He put ice packs on the shaft, and I
heated the flange up with a torch. He put it on inside the boat and I
hammered it in from the outside. Then we put the Max-Prop back on,
although it took us three or four tries to get it right.

..I took pictures of that which are here - only a dozen photos

Link to view these photos:
http://www.photoworks.com/photo-shar... lb_pml&cb=PW