Having never needed to align a boat's engine before, I knew nothing of the procedure. However, after an engine
overhaul, requiring its
removal and re-installation, I have had to learn about it.
This forum has been incredibly useful, and I've read and watched other sources of info, too.
Cheechako asked about using a table with necessary info, such as number of turns of engine mount nuts to produce a given result at the coupling. Well, the geometry is fairly heavy weight, but can be done. However, I found
Google Sketchup to be very handy. I modeled the engine mounts and output shaft using sketchup, along with dimensions at the coupling faces and the mounts.
Now, by rotating the (virtual) engine in the required plane, I can see the effect at the coupling. I have to
work in reverse, in a way, by moving the engine first to see what effect it has at the coupling, but it looks good so far. The
software is free and works on all platforms. You don't need the pro version to get very accurate figures (< 0.0005" or half a thou).
I think it will help enormously, although I haven't tested it out in the real world yet. We plan to start the job tomorrow,
weather permitting. I'll report back.
I've found tons of essential info in this forum, and I hope that this may add to it.