Nice thread, and I've wondered the same thing.

As to thrust, the tranny is already set up for thrust (witness the amount of
polished shaft sticking out from the cutlass, at rest, the amount of thrust
forward taken up by the engine mounts and whatever else being that polished
amount - on ours, about 1/4")...

Auto trannies that I've had my hands on deal with the thrust by a splined
shaft at the tranny, with the limitation on thrust being controlled by the
rear suspension, and the up-down-left-right differences in length being
dealt with by the splined shaft. However, that shouldn't be needed by any
normal boat tranny.

Having the engine on normal mounts is, to my mind, an argument about not
being all that fussy about alignment (not that I am not), given the amount
of play in them, either under thrust, or from the vibration inherent in any
normal diesel. I can't imagine that more than .004 differences wouldn't
occur in our case, the level of aligment required.

L8R, y'all.

Skip

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