Bup - no worries! I bought the tool listed in your second reply. I know exactly what you mean. My lower steering pin/bushing has a small amount of play and the bellhousing can move up/down a small amount. It definitely was able to get me close. And lead me to place the washers in the rear mounts so that's good. I will order the its tool tomorrow morning and give that a try. I replaced the coupler about a month ago and it had .005 total runout. After the first coupler failure i decided to put the stainless coupler with the snout and had two of them out of round like .030 with centering with tapered bolts per bulletin. Thats when i decided to go back to aluminum and get the alignment absolutely perfect. So how do i exactly use the its tool. I see a few pictures of it online. So place the bar in the coupler then slide the other part toward the gimbal bearing. And with a flashlight u can see which exact way the engine needs to move in order for the sliding piece to fit in the gimbal id?

thanks for the continued help!

Brian

I have a boat I just pulled the Bravo XR off. I will snap pics tomorrow of exactly what I am talking about and of course my not so great grammer when I do the write up. haha

If your gimble is is bouncing around , all the alignment efforts in the world won't do a thing and its only going to get worse untill you fix it,

So with the its bar fully in the coupler i can wiggle it around. There is a massive amount of slop. Ill try to post a link to a video.

https://youtu.be/gP0soIQK2L8

Your missing a sleeve that should slide over the shaft. My tool has one size that fits into the coupler and a slightly larger "step" that only goes into the gimbal bearing. It also has a stop that bottoms out at the bearing.
that is the wrong shaft for your boat or is is missing the sleeve.
Now we see the problem.
You must have the right tools for the job.

I have the stock MERC alignment tool. but then I installed an IMCO extension box. IMCO sells an extended tool. I couldn't wait so I made my own.

I have the sleeve that fits over the bar. I thought the idea of this tool is to put the bar in the coupler then you want it centered in the gimbal bearing. That way u can actually see which way the engine needs to move. Then slide the sleeve on and make sure it smoothly goes into the gimbal bearing. I have so much slop between the bar and coupler i cant do that...

Some videos of a few new in box steel spare couplers i have with the bar in them.