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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Re: Thin wall cutlass bearings
Posted By: Capt Patrick McCrary In Response To: Re: Thin wall cutlass bearings (Carl)
Date: Tuesday, 30 August 2005, at 2:26 p.m.
Carl,
The first time we over bored a set of stock struts for 1 1/2" thin walled cutlass bearings was on Jerry Well's "Fortuna" back in '95. Kevin Schuller bought & changed the name to "Iasgair". Don't know how many hours Kevin put on the boat, but it's been in service for over 9 years.
Tommy Oakes re-powered "Iasgair" with 330hp Diamond Series 6BTAs a couple of years ago and kept the same struts onboard.
Tommy Drake's "Island Girl" was the next bore when Bruce and I repowered her with diesels in 2000 or 2001, (I forget...). Tommy has had flawless operation, at least with regard to the struts.
The same strut job accompanied Jim Bailey's "Buddy Boy", and to the best of my knowledge, no problems there either. A year and a half on the water.
The other bore jobs that Robert has done for me have been "out of town" B31s, but never a negative feed back from the owners. Only one boat is awaiting sea trials, that being Dr. Gerry Santiago's "Zero Cavity", which is being re-fitted at Cabrera's & will probably launch next spring.
Robert is the head cheese for Bobby Sole Propellers in West Palm Beach, FL, (http://www.bobbysolespropellers.com/), & has well over 40 years of experience with marine running gear. Like Bruce and myself, Robert won't do a job just to make a buck; if it's not right we'll all tell ya' to take a hike, rather than go ahead and do the job just because someone insists that that's what he wants...
Now I have to caveat one thing here: Three of these boats were fitted with engine beds of my own design, once locked down, those engines will not move without a wrench being taken to them. Same goes for the strut installation.
I do know of two instances where someone has taken their struts to an un-qualified machine shop and the shop screwed them up beyond repair, making it necessary to use Danny Piedra's over sized replacement struts.
Danny's High Tide Marine struts are excellent in quality and worth the money, but they are heavy to the point of shear over kill. They could probably be bored easily to fit 3 1/2" shafts... Without grinding a tapper to fit on the leading end of the strut tube, there will be significant parasitic drag. That will add $$$ to their cost also...
Off the top of my head, the over bore job by Robert, new cutlass bearings installed, & w/ new over sized set screws is around $450.00 (per pair) F.O.B WPB, FL
Best regards,
Patrick
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