it had me worried...i losened all the motor mount bolts on the engine plates/ L brackets and put a small bottle jack between the heads at the rear of the motor put a lil pressure on it and tighened all the bolts bought 3/16 if an inch there then had a machine shop mill 3/16 off headers at the flande. i now have about 3/16 clearance between em...a few more days i should be in the water. thx for everones help and advice here on oso. as a newbie to the offshore world you all have saved me from some pitfalls along the way with your savvy advice. peace out, ratman

Dude, you now have misaligned the engines in relation to the drives/gimbals. This is not good. You are going to have to re-align the engines to the gimbals and drives or you will chew up couplers, gimbal brgs, the whole nine yards. Sorry, better get someone to check it.

there was slop in the bolt holes i just rolled the engines away from each other a tad... nothing seems to be bnding and i don't think i'll have any problems. the motors moved 3/32 at most.

i don't have a coupler BTW, ssm#3a's bw trans and spline from outdrive slips into tail end of the trans.