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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Re: struts
Posted By: Capt Patrick McCrary In Response To: Re: struts (JIM)
Date: Friday, 18 February 2005, at 7:16 p.m.
Phil & Jim,
Over boring the strut tube to 2" to accept the 1 1/2" thin walled cutlass bearing is pretty much a standard procedure...
The stock 15° struts for the 1 3/8" shaft has a 1 7/8" bore. Boring to 2" only removes 1/16" of metal from the wall thickness of the tube. The 1 1/2" bearing are about 3/8" longer than the tube, but my machinist just presses them in flush with the aft opening, leaving the full length of the bearing.
This is a job that must be done by a qualified under water running gear machine shop. I know of two guys who either tried to do the job themselves or took them to a shade tree shop. Both were failures and their only option was to go with the High Tides after market struts.
Robert, my machinist, has done 5 sets of struts for me alone over the past ten years & all flawless. He's also been doing marine running gear for over 30 years. Yup, he's the same guy the designed & produces my rudders...
This is also a job that can't be done on the boat. They must be jigged properly in the boring lathe and cut true.
When you do a repower, you'll want to have the struts down any way, any old shims removed from the boat and get every thing lined up correctly so that no, or very thin shims are required.
Figure on spending in the neighborhood of $500 for the boring and new bearings installed. That's less than 1/2 the price of Danny's after market struts, with bearings installed.
I believe there is at least one guy who machined down the thin walled bearing to 1 7/8' and made them fit, but that leaves a pretty thin shell around the rubber & little, if any, meat for the set screws...
Best regards,
Patrick
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