What a bunch of #$@!

[Mrs.Daze]

I gave specific instructions he was NOT to buy me anything! I'm just looking forward to hanging with my best friend and love of my life this evening

[zegm]

Gentlemen,

First let me say this, I have owned an inboard ski boat for over 30 years and have been around them and other owners for that time too. I think Moomba is a Great Value we LOVE our boat. BUT!!! I have installed engines in them, rebuilt engines in them, rewired them, but a complete new floor in them. I would say I know a little about them. There is a strut under the boat that supports the driveshaft, this strut needs to be parallel to the front to rear axis of the boat. It might not be directly on the center line but it needs to be parallel. Once this strut is mounted then the driveshaft will follow it. The horizontal angle is fixed by the casting. The port to starboard orientation of this strut is fixed by how the screws are drilled through the hull and into the backing plate. Now follow the driveshaft up until you see it enter the hull and there the hull is formed with a semi circular cavity that is big enough for the driveshaft and sealing device to mount to. On our boat this is offset to the port side and it is obvious it is off, since we are traveling this weekend I can't take a picture but we will. Now what does this mean? For anyone who has seen a DD engine you will see that you have a few inches of adjustment so that the engine can be tilted fore and aft and can be shifted from port to starboard. Once the shaft is put into the strut (which can not be adjusted after it is mounted) you must line/orient the engine/tranny coupling up with the coupling on the strut. This can be time consuming if you ever have to do it. OK now lets get to our boat, I have pictures of it from the dealership before I ever picked it up and you can see that the engine is shifted off to port side of the ski pylon, the pulley on the engine is not centered. OK now lets go back to the oil filter issue, one reason we could not get our filter out is because we could not even get our hand in between the stringer and the block on this side. Yet I can stick my whole leg down the gap on the starboard side. When I looked at the adjustment rods (horizontal rods that allow you to slide the engine from side to side a couple inches for alignment) I noticed it was adjusted all the way to the port side BEFORE WE GOT A NEW ENGINE!!!! Now when we did get the engine replaced the Technician did bring this up to me again and he stated that luckily that there was just enough adjustment to align the prop shaft with no adjustment left. In other words it is in the same place as it was when the factory installed it. If you don't align it correctly you will put a slight bow in the drive shaft and after a year or two it will break the driveshaft in two. I found this out many years ago when I had an engine mount slowly sink into the wooden stringer. Again we are not home but we will take pictures and show you. It does not bother us because it is correctable and you could say it is in "tolerance". It just makes it a b!tC& to get to the oil filter.
Again we love this boat but nothing is perfect and there are some good things about the other brands. But for our money we will take our Gorgeous Blue Moomba. And be careful about talking about things you don't understand, I will be more than happy to inform, educate, provide pictures, providing you can of course accept that I have grammer and spelling issues. I am an engineer with over 20 years of Automotive and Marine experience. I was just given an award for the help I provided for the US Navy and actually had to present the work I did for the Navy to the President of ITT industries on Thursday. In other words I know what I am talking about here Mr Ed. And Jody at Florida Inboards is a True Master at what he does. There are others on this board that know what I am talking about here too!

[moombadaze]

ok, i take it that the prop is sitting off-center

[zegm]

Moombadaze,

Yeah you could say it is off center but what really happen is when they mounted he prop shaft support strut they had a sligh twist in it. So the shaft is not parallel with the axis of the boat, it is at a slight angle which caused it to run to the port side when it got to the hull. That is what Ginny was saying if they had some nice tooling aids they could do a better job here. She knows her stuff here too as she has actually workied in more factories than I have all across the USA. The plant she is working at now is BIG! And modern and clean and well it is impressive and she handles all of the programming for the machinery and inventory and etc.

[Razzman]

Zegm, i too have done all of that as well. In fact when i completely renovated my '95 Tigé DD a few years back I realized it to was off center as well. By buddies 2000 Super Sport Nautique v-drive is the same way, off center strut. I'll admit i haven't checked the LSV, but then I just haven't had time. I know for fact my brother-in-laws Sanger is adjusted way left on his DD's engine.

Whatever the reason it's definately not only a Moomba or lower end boat issue. It's not rocket science when boat mfgrs set the bottom hardware, most use a template set on the hull and they drill in mass. If that templates even off a hair the running gear will be off. I saw a Mastercraft at a boat show a few years back the had all the fins out of align, the strut crooked and of all things the swim platform cockeyed! Wasn't obvious until you were behind it wasys but there it was! Somebody was hung over that day!

[Membrain]

Is it termed laser sighting or laser alignment? We have the same thing when bolting a motor to a pump.

[zabooda]

Very interesting Z. Thanks for sharing as I will now take a look at the pulley location when I uncover it. So I imagine you had a weight balancing and torque issue. The rudder will be offset from the prop to account for the torque but having the prop offset changes all that.

[zegm]

zabooda,
Yeah the prop is now angled a couple of degrees off the axis, but we haven't really noticed any issues with it. The only real problem is getting to the oil filter, I have to remove the wiring harness that is bolted on that side of the block and lift it out of the way to get my hand in there. Then once I have the oil filter off I have to pass it over to the other side of the engine to MrsZ to get it out from under the motor. I have been thinking of remote mounting it to make this process easier. I still intend to get a picture of the through hole in the hull to show how it is not concentric I just have been too busy (or maybe lazy) to do it.

[Razzman]

The only real problem is getting to the oil filter, I have to remove the wiring harness that is bolted on that side of the block and lift it out of the way to get my hand in there. Then once I have the oil filter off I have to pass it over to the other side of the engine to MrsZ to get it out from under the motor. I have been thinking of remote mounting it to make this process easier.

Exactly the same problem i had on the Tigé with the Mercruiser. Remote filter is the only way to go. The problem i had was clearance under the doghouse. Had to custom make bracketry to mount it to the rear of the motor as there was absolutely none up front.

[MrsZ]

Razzman, we tried to order our boat with the remote oil filter but we were told it was not an option available for the LS. So we will have to do creative stuffing if we want that option. Has anyone installed remote oil filter on a direct drive?