spicemouse

The realities of being a live aboard mean that I am in the crap (only one cassette left, and now very low water). I'm a fair distant from a station and shops. I really do need to get moving soon. If I can get this fixed and it works for a few months, okay. At least I know how to fix it next time, and how to get the parts. I'll be a few weeks ahead of myself this time. It's clearly an old part, whether it came off this boat or was bought as a replacement I'll never know. I'll speak to R&D about a new damper, but I'd still need a spacer too. That's weeks away. If this part let's me cruise onwards I'll be happy.

Could be, potential both parts aren't parallel so slowly wears over time.

Not 100% sure that this is, but both metal sections have three jaws. It's very very similar to the old part. Your can see that it looks like it's been welded in the past.

It felt like some canal god is playing with me and planting the parts I need!

That's the words I was looking for!

PLOT TWIST: This is an extremely unexpected update. I'd previously sent away the old parts and was speaking to people about spacers. Today I was tidying up my backroom and storage space, and came across something most unexpected: It looks like a previous owner maybe knew the old coupling was going, as they bought an almost identical TSCHAN damper coupling like the one I took off! It's a five lug one, rather than my old 6 lug but the spline is the same. It also comes with a flywheel plate so the number of lugs shouldn't be an issue. You cannot imagine how surprised I was finding this! I must have looked at it after I bought the boat but I'd have no idea what I would have been looking at. Anyway, I tried to remove the old flywheel plate but it couldn't fit out the housing. Tried to prop up the engine and remove the casing, but it's stuck and I can't see how to get going. I'll try get someone more experience over this coming week to get it off and then fit the new/old/surprise coupling.

Weekend update: I'm going to try and go for a R&D damper plate. It's about 25mm, so I need 20mm of spacing. Thinking I'll use these tube spacers, sound okay?

I'll give them a ring when I can, been busy in work sadly. Has anyone tried spline adaptors? https://splineshop.com/product-category/spline-adapters/

I've contacted a few fabricators about creating a new part (I might go with a steel part instead of aluminium). This seems like the easiest, and then I'd order something like this https://e-rubber.eu/product/s-145-coupling/ to replace the rubber. Sadly T. Norris were unable to help. I'm still looking for local aluminium welders, but fear that the amount of new bit we'd need will put most off. I'd again need the rubber part. I'm waiting to hear back from R&D about their damper drive plates. This might still be the cheapest easiest option if they actually make a 13T version (which I can't see on their datasheets http://www.randdmarine.com/downloads/RandD_Damper.pdf) Thanks! I'm glad it's interesting too. These forums are such a great resource for folk like myself, and hopefully this post might prove useful for the next boater who looses an old coupling!

I think it's the year of manufacture, 03/1963 I can get accurate measurements of it though, so finding a new rubber part should still be possible. They seem to come in all sizes.

I've not looked as I thought I'd most likely end up having to replace all of it. Maybe I should ask about welding first.

I found the parts, but they are all very worn and deformed: I'm no expert on welding, but I don't think they could be reused without a fair bit of work on them. Hadn't considered this option though.

I might be well off here, but are R&D plates quite flat? I saw them discussed earlier and I think the gap in my system would require some sort of spacer on the flywheel.

Got a ball park quote for ~£4k for that, which would be nearly terminal! (they always wanted to replace most/all of the system). I'm hoping it'll be faster, 8 weeks I think I'd have to get a tow closer to a service as I'm about 5miles from the nearest Elsan point 😬

It's a about 200g, maybe 1/4 the weight of the other part. I'm thinking aluminium. No scales aboard sadly.