My rings were fine. After I got everything together and tightened things up...all was good. We did an experiment on a buddy's boat last September. His ring was not so good so I measured the new swivel pin and we went to a local machine shop and had them build us a square. They did a great job on the square and it fit just a little tight over the square part of the swivel pin. We had to tap it down in place but it worked. Instead of sending his ring off tobe welded up and then machined down, we just added some extra meat tothe swivel pin and pushed it up into place. It worked perfect and is still working. It fit on the swivel pin like a small sock to take up some wobble room on the ring. It worked perfect, but if I was going to have my rings repaired, I think I would send them to J&M and let him do it. My bud just didnt have the dollars at the time and didnt want to sit around and wait several months.

thanks for the info.,
I will know better once I get the ring off. I can still see the lil divits on the ring around the square, so I will probably take a measurement (caliper gauge) of the pin and the gimbal square to see how far the ubolt has to bend the ring around the pin. Guessing, its probably maybe only an 1/8" before its in jeopardy of breaking the ring.

any clue on that measurement? (how much the gimbal should move to tighten down on the pin?

On the gimbal that we put the square spacer on...it needed about 1/8 inch to tighten up. After we got the square spacer on the swivel, it was a little less than 1/16 inch. Mine were about 1/16 inch to tighten it up +/- a hair or two. I'm sorry but I did measure mine with some calipers, but it has been right at a year since and I just dont remember. Prior to changing my pins, I could move my drives up and down slightly when trimmed up a ways. I was told that this was not suppose to happen and that it should not be able to move the drive up or down by hand. After I got my new pins in place and everything torqued down as specified, I tried it again and I couldnt move the drives up or down like I did before. It was like pushing on a fire plug trying to push it over. I did talk to Ron about it at J&M and he said that that was good...not being able to lift the drive when it was trimmed up a ways. Now my drives feel solid and my steering has no play in it like before...almost like external hydraulic steering.

You are pretty close to a friend of mine over there...Paul Duke. He use to have a Baja 302 with massive MPI issues in it. I pulled all the MPI stuff off and installed carbs and his boat woke up. Paul told me that it never ran that good before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8FMvAWyBes

Mine didnt move up or down, just have the S seal leaking and have slack. both pins were loose and not holding the ring up against the housing like they should. I will check the measure before I make my next move.

We talked about the 302 back on TBM thread a while back when I had the 25ol. Thanks for the help.

Slack...are you talking about the slack going left & right? I had some slack there too but all gone now. I just barely have some wiggle. I could lift up on my drives whenever I was trimmed about 1/2 way to the top and move them, lifting up about 1 inch or so. I found out that this as well as the left and right slop was because there was not a good fit on the square part of the old pin to the gimbal. Got the new pin in as well as the J&M u-bolts. Tighten the new U-bolts to 60 pounds feet and no more slop.

Holler anytime and let me know how this works out for you.

yes, just left to right. I tried pulling up on the drives when trimmed up and they didnt budge.(you mean J&R?)

If all you have is some slop left and right, then from what I have seen and been told...your rings should be good and not need any repair work done to them when trimmed up about half way and then grab hold of the bottom of the skag and lift up. Yes...I mean J&R...sorry...think I said J&M. J&M is where I get a lot of my audio stuff for my motorcycle.

Almost done... Just need to put her back together, she came out really tight!!

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Well, thanks shooter again for posting this. I did not have to rebuild my rings, they had a small amount of wear, but overall still looked good. Proof was in the finish product, couldnt move the rings by hand once installed.

I also painted the plates black also, and will get some new stickers to make it looks as factory as possible.
I made my own tools for this project. thinned the open end of a 1 1/16 wrench as I couldnt find a pump wrench and also grinded the 2 5/8s wrenches.

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Easy project for those wanting to attemp this. I went from about 4-5"s of slack to about 1" measured at the end of the cavitation plate!!

How much total time in that