Dear community,
After a day of sailing the
SF Bay with my
Cal 2-27 (1977) I turned on my Atomic 4 gasoline inboard
engine to proceed with lowering my
sails. However, when putting it in
gear I noticed something was wrong and after investigating I figured out that the prop shaft had come out of the engine/coupler. The shaft didn't completely depart the
boat (most likely because a shaft zinc obstructed a complete departure).
After
docking my
boat under sail in the Berkeley Marina (great
learning experience) I continued the investigation. My guess is that the set screw somehow came undone. I was able to reinsert the shaft into the coupler and tightened the setscrew into the dimple on the shaft.
Unfortunately, 2 trips later, the same thing happened. This time I decided to apply Loctite to the setscrew to (hopefully) keep the shaft in place and prevent it from coming out.
Since reinstalling the shaft in the coupler and using the Loctite I have only taken the boat out for a sail once. On this trip, I only used the
engine for about 10 minutes (leaving and entering the marina). The shaft is still connected to the engine and did not come undone this time.
However, I'm still a little insecure about the situation. Does anyone have suggestions about how to prevent my shaft from coming out of the engine again?
Is it true that it is only the set screw what keeps the shaft from not falling out?
Is the application of Loctite to the set screw sufficiently effective in keeping the shaft in place?
What other (additional?) measures could I take to prevent the shaft from coming undone?
Thank you.