Search the Community

Hi, I'm having some issues with my boat. It's a very unusual setting, probably not the best one, but this is how we got it. So the thing is, the gearbox is not inline with the engine and so the power is transimtted with a belt. And on top of the gearbox shaft there was sitting a tube which fell apart. I was talking with one engineer and the only idea he had is to get a splined tube to put on the gearbox shaft and weld it to the shaft coming out of the belt powered wheel. Ok, I know it sounds a bit complicated, but my question is, Does anyone have a used and redundant drive plate for ZF 10 gearbox with 10 splines? They're quite expensive and I only need the middle ring with splines so it's a bit of a shame to buy the whole drive plate. Maybe someone has even a damaged one that I could recycle? Best Marcin

Dear all, I have a beta marine 38, with a PRM delta gearbox (no input shaft spline wear) driven by an R & D 'extra dampening' drive plate. Coupled via a double-cardan/constant velocity joint (from a london taxi propshaft), through a plumber's block to the stern bearing. When engaged in gear, at tick-over (wound down to 550rpm), there is a distinct 'clonk-clonk-clonk' coming from the region of the gearbox. At higher engine speeds, this noise seems to go away, although that could just be the engine drowning it out. The shaft/cv join moves freely (with the force expected to drive a prop in water) by hand in both directions. The engine is angled down slightly on its mounts (adjustable screw-nut ones) so that the double-cardan input is slightly off-set. My question is - should I worry about this? I have no nylon coupling between the gearbox and the prop/cv-join input shaft, so is this likely to just be 'clonky plumbers block'? Should I raise the tick-over? It was wound down when the engine control lever insisted on increasing the rpm prior to engaging gear - there is now a correct control lever. I think the rated tickover is 750rpm. I will increase it. Many thanks, Patrick Vale (cross-posted to http://www.waterwaysworld.com/questions.cgi) Which seems to have replaced the title - should read 'Drive train clonking in gear'.

Hello lovely people, we are starting to look for our first live-aboard and saw this boat. It ticks lots of boxes, the price allows for modifications so it's on the list. My concern is the plate thicknesses... 6mm bottom and 3mm top appear very thin to this novice, even with the epoxy coating. Is this an issue?

I thought I'd share my attempt last week at making a wine cellar * beer cellar/cider store/veg store*....I've been putting it off for ages but now that non-private BSS has been done AND the Business license is going through with crt, i thought I'd better pull my finger out and do a few jobs before we get our first guest on board (10th April). STILL not got enough bookings to make us rich but pleased to have 6 lined up so far.Anyway - I remembered a door frame (don't ask) I had left in the garage at home so went to collect some post and loaded it into the car. Not wanting to buy any more wood, I convinced myself that it wouldn't look odd using both 1 and 2 inch sections to make a frame.... Having gone back into the boat, I rather sensibly (for once) had the idea to number the pieces on the floor before taking it up. I used a bit of masking tape and simple 1-36 system.Once the frame was the size I wanted it, put it on the floor, drew around it and then took it up. Having already removed ballast here, there were cut sections in the sub floor but of course NOT the place I wanted them... to add insult to injury, there was also a bearer in the wrong place meaning the last 6 inches of the store would not be usable. Not the end of the world though as I just moved it up a bit. Moving it up of course meant I needed to cut some MORE floor out... and of course having sold my corded multi-too when we emptied the house/garage out, I was left using the battery version. Luckily I had a few charged up batteries *note to self - rotate the regularly on the charger*.That seemed to take all afternoon so I abandoned it for the day and came back to if fresh yesterday afternoon (having had chores to do in the morning). I began fitting back in the cut out sections down each side (once I'd tested a bottle of Pepsi (other coal flavoured soft drinks are available)) would fit. and then cut the sub floor to fit into the recess.Whilst I'm sure I DID take more photos as I was doing things, my phone seems to have other ideas... as the next one it has stored is the (relatively) finished result It's VERY sturdy and doesn't flex at all when walked on... I still need to find some flush handles to lift it out with and I'm toying with the idea of fitting hinges on one side.... It doesn't look too bad and I'm quite pleased with it. I still need to paint it out inside... I've got some hammertie garage door paint lurking somewhere so that will suffice.