Weird Vibrations

[Chief Engineer]

Shouldn't take more than an hour or so.

vee-drives are a little tricky.

Originally Posted by Talbot

Biggest problem with replacement of engine mountings, is the need to re-align engine to shaft afterwards.

Have you looked at the engine while it is doing its vibration, suggest you do this while closely observing the mounts.

[unbusted67]

Here are my engine mounts, by the way. We still have an inch and a half of clearance between the metal flanges that hold the rubber together. Maybe someone else will notice something my inexperienced eye won't

[Chief Engineer]

In the first image, you can see the "twist" in the engine mount.

On Yanmars, usually the first mount to fail is the one under the secondary fuel filter.

These mounts look real old....Yanmar Mounts don't last forever...esp if they have had fuel spilled on them. PYI is making a mount for Yanmar Engines

[unbusted67]

So is it bad to use the engine when this is happening? Are we going to do damage to the shaft/cutlass/etc. if we are motoring around like this? Like I said it really only happens when we are changing speeds/gears?

[Chief Engineer]

I would be concerned not only with the shaft, shaft log, cutlass, but also the coupling and the transmission.

Fix it.....If you are going to do it yourself...we will walk you through it.

[unbusted67]

I am not going to do it myself but I very much appreciate the offer for the walk through. That is one of the many reasons this forum is awesome. I am bummed because I am off the boat next week and wanted to sail a bunch for my last week aboard. So much for that idea. Thanks for all of the info though, and helping me track this thing down.

[Chief Engineer]

How long do you have to run the engine before you put the sails up?

[Talbot]

Originally Posted by Chief Engineer

Re-alignment shouldn't take more than an hour or so.

vee-drives are a little tricky.

If you do it as often as you do perhaps! For us lesser mortals who may do it once or twice a decade, it is akin to magic

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by Chief Engineer

How long do you have to run the engine before you put the sails up?

We are in San Diego where the air can sometimes be light and we motor sail a lot.

[Cheechako]

It's just really hard to say from our end whether you should go out or not. You did say "vibrate violently" I think, But then you said it went away mostly. While those Mounts look old and rusty, I would think motor mount problems would start slow and get worse gradually unless one is obviously broken. Are you sure you didnt wrap up a kelp or large plastic bag etc on your prop/ then got rid of most of it? if it smooths out at normal rpm... well you have to decide ....but it's probably OK to go out sailing I would say... After all, it is a sailboat!

[Chief Engineer]

But anybody who can turn a wrench can do it.....it can be vexing at times tho' fer us perfesshunols

Originally Posted by Talbot

If you do it as often as you do perhaps! For us lesser mortals who may do it once or twice a decade, it is akin to magic

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by unbusted67

Here are my engine mounts, by the way. We still have an inch and a half of clearance between the metal flanges that hold the rubber together. Maybe someone else will notice something my inexperienced eye won't

Clicking on your images to see a larger one results in pop-ups that override the CF page, unbeknown to me till I close it the safe way (task manager) and find my CF page is gone.

[unbusted67]

Sorry, I am like a bull in a China shop on the web. If it makes you feel better the images are re-sized for the web so they can't get any bigger.