Replacing the cuppler this weekend- can you help?
 

I am new here and this is my first post. I look forward to learning from this website. I am a member of many car forums and know how extremely resourceful they can be.

Here is the story-

My father has a 1999 33 outlaw with 454's. Over the weekend he "spun a cuppler" in the starboard engine/drive.

He informed me that we will be changing this this weekend and I find myself not feeling too comfortable about doing/helping with this unless I know more.

I know that we need to pull the engine but I need to know if there are any special or sneaky things we should watch out for when doing this. Any special tools we should get? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Is there a DIY I can see or does has someone else here dealt with this?

Talk about jumping in head first huh?

Thanks a bunch

Do both! I spun my 2nd out less than 10 hrs later.

Tahnks for the reply.

did you personally do it? If so, how tough of a job was it? It doesn't seem too tough, just alot of heavy moving. Rough estimation of hours to complete?

Anything i shoud look out for upon reassembly?

Make sure you have the Alienment tool for when tou put the engine back in. Otherwise you are going to yave major problems.

The coupler tool is denifately a must but it should align very easily as your are installing the same engine in the same spot. Don't worry about the job, you will get through it, Alignment is everything but simple. Estimate? all weekend.

It can be done without pulling the engine completely out if you have enough room to pull it forward. It might be tough to get between the engines though. Only special tool is the alignment tool. Alignment shouldn't even need to be touched if you pull the front mounts without messing with the adjustment. The job can be done in one day if you have the motivation. My experience is that once the engine is out, you'll always find something else that you want to take care of as long as the engine is out. BTW, I did my engine install by myself since nobody was around to help that day so it can't be that tough.

Rene

Thios past Sat:
4 guys with day jobs but we've done this before.

Started at 8:00. Pulled steering and drive, "de-rigged" motor and pulled it out of the boat. Dropped accessories and anything else needed to drop the oil pan. Found the pickup tube laying in the bottom of the pan, Went to 6 stores to find a replacement pickup tube. Re-installed pump, oil pan, etc. Re-installed motor, re-rigged, installed drive/steering and set timing. Got the boat running and DONE!!! at 1:00

If you have the equipment to lift a motor then your not complete rookies. Take your time and be careful. (alignment is your only issue once completed)

I actually did an exchange and replaced the flywheel with the engine still resting on the front mounts. I don't recommend it as it was very tricky. I had no lift but had enough room to rock the back of the engine up enough to loosen the coupler bolts. If you have a lift, pull'em, especially with two. Have some one look @ the shafts for splin damage. Keep them greased.

If you don't get it aligned correctly and run the boat, you will replacing the coupler again within 10 hours.

thanks for all the replies. We do have the alignment tool so we are hoping that everything goes semi- smoothly even though I know it won't cause it never does.

How can you tell when it is aligned perfectly?

Will the tool be able to freely slide in and out? I am assuming that if there is any type of friction upon inserting the tool that it is not completely aligned. Does that sound right?

Also, out of curiosity do any of you know how much one of these engines weigh?

thanks again

Correct on the alignment tool. It should slide in and out easily. Coat it with grease and adjust accordingly.

Engine weighs about 800lbs.

I did this job on a pair of 575SCi's and pretty much
everything been mentioned so far is true. Pull the
motors completely if possible.

Now here's where my situation got complicated: offshore
style mounts (you probably have standard mounts) that
for all practical purposes have no alignment. With almost
400 hours I felt it prudent to replace the rear mounts in
the flywheel cover. That will require a power pull and all
the associated tools. Not to mention a new style mount
that requires an iterative fit to determine if you need to use
the optional washer supplied (and I've pretty well decided
that anyone with offshore mounts will find it necessary to
use the washer, standard mounts could go either way).

Luckily with the washers my alignment was spot on (after I
realized that you must do final tightening of the front mounts
with the engine supported-again only true for offshore mounts). If offshore mounts are off at that point, it becomes
quite complicated.

Overall though a job worth tackling.

Pesky Varmint

Did these boats come with Offshore mounts from the factory or is that an upgrade from stock? I would assume that we have the stock mounts.

Offshore mounts aren't usually used until you get to either
Merc blue engines or aftermarket engines. If you're front
motor mounts are the adjustable pedestals, they are
not offshore mounts.

Pesky

Make sure you get the proper alignment tool. Mercruiser sells differnet ones depending on your outdrive.

Update
 

We pulled both of the drives off today, it is the only thing we have done so far. We wanted to check the alignment of each engine as they are just out of curiousity.

What we found:

The starboard engine, the one with the broken coupler, would take the alignment tool in farther than the port engine by about an inch.

It seemed like the broken engine was going all the way in (with the tool) while the engine that is OK seemed like maybe it was not aligned and was not going all the way in? Does that make sense?

Do you think the port engine could be out of alignment? Both were fairly easy to move the tool through but the starboard engine seemed to be a bit tougher to pull out.

Any suggestions, thoughts, as to what might be happening?

We are getting ready to tear into it shortly so the quicker I can get a response I guess the better I will feel.

Thanks guys!

the bad coupler is not a good test for alignment. the tool needs to go in all the way and meet against the seat.