how critical is the alliment on a trs set up?i installed my motor/trans in my 10meter this weekend.when all was bolted up,and i stuck my alliment tool to check alliment,the plate on the alliment tool would not mate-up flusk with housing on the drive.bottom is good,but top has a gap about 1/8".if i raise up on the motor/trans,i can shorten the distance,but still not flush.i have offshore mounts,both front and rear.do i have to drill new holes or will the u-joints make up the diffrence?the starbord motor was almost perfect,maybe about .30".what gives?thanks all.

Haven't done many TRS's lately but allways made sure the alignment was good. If not the drive could be hard to get on. And the U joints don't make up for bad alignment.

Keep in mind a TRS is a totally different animal when it comes to alignment than a Alpha or Bravo. The Alpha and Bravo have 2 completely seperate pieces, the gimble bearing and engine coupler which must be aligned with each other or the input shaft on the drive will not slide in through both. On the TRS there is no gimble bearing. You are sliding the input shaft of the drive directly into the transmission tail stock bearing and ingaging it with the trans output shaft. There fore if the alignment was off it would have nothing to do with installing the drive. Personally I think alignment is no where as critical on a TRS as it is on a Alpha or Bravo which must be perfect. I can tell you this, I have had my TRS boat 23 years and have had at least 5 different engines in it and have never once used an alignment tool on it. Not saying this is right but I have never had a issue with u-joints or anything related to this. Seems to me when you trim the drive you are doing the same thing as if you were raising the front of the engine up or down.

The alignment he is speaking of uses the aluminum plate and how square it sits with the bell housing. Not reading the grease mark from the splines. If that were the case you could bolt it in anywhere and it would be ok. I'm not sure how critical it is but would like to think you are pretty close.

Personally I think alignment is no where as critical on a TRS as it is on a Alpha or Bravo which must be perfect. I can tell you this, I have had my TRS boat 23 years and have had at least 5 different engines in it and have never once used an alignment tool on it. Not saying this is right but I have never had a issue with u-joints or anything related to this. Seems to me when you trim the drive you are doing the same thing as if you were raising the front of the engine up or down.[/QUOTE]

I pretty agree.

I understand he was talking about the TRS alignment tool. There is no way to go by reading the grease marks on the splines when aligning a TRS.

Ok I must have mis understood what you meant by the splines an bearing being off

As said by others I don't believe the alignment is critical mainly because no gimbal bearing. Mine was off also by roughly 1/8" on the top.

I did have a problem when the tailstock bearing seized and wore down the input shaft on my drive. When I tried to put the shaft into the tailstock it would not line up. Hung down a few 0.001"s and would not slide into the splines. Sometimes it would take 3hrs and a miracle to get the shaft into the tail stock. I put 1.5 wraps of electrical tape around the shaft. Now it lines up and only take 5 mins to put a drive on.

That's a true "boating on a budget" fix right there! That's why we do what we do!