- Joined
- Mar 8, 2009
- Messages
- 42,561
Short answer but long story, but if Ya don't want to read it go to the bottom
I bought the Merc part 91-863372 a couple years ago and never used it. I managed to get it real close without it so (thinking to my very Naive self) , said self "your good, no need to get the tool" and moved on. The drive would slide into place and only took an ever so slight push of one hand.
This season, grabbed my alignment bar, and shoved it in, and it was good but knew it could be better. Thought about climbing in/out the boat several times and really didn't want to do that again. Almost stopped and installed drive but decided to get the tool. Placed it on the alignment bar and pushed the bar and tool flush with the bell housing.
I could see with ease that the port side needed to go down maybe a 3/4 turn and the starboard side need to go down a bit less. Pulled bar out, climbed in, adjusted nuts what I thought would work, then shoved bar back in. The tool wnet in even easier this time. now noticed it only maybe needed an touch more on the port side, did that and talk about sliding in like butter, wow.
I would bet you could make one of these tools without knowing any more then the diameter of the alignment bar main diameter. The larger area would be helpful to get close to the same size as the bell housing, but I was able to see how it needed to be adjusted by seeing the gap between the tool face and the bell housing face.
The answer to adjusting alignment with ease is needing something that has a flat surface perpendicular to the alignment bar. This way there is no need to read the marks on the bar coming from the coupler.
Do wish I took pics to post the before and after, but it was easy to read
I bought the Merc part 91-863372 a couple years ago and never used it. I managed to get it real close without it so (thinking to my very Naive self) , said self "your good, no need to get the tool" and moved on. The drive would slide into place and only took an ever so slight push of one hand.
This season, grabbed my alignment bar, and shoved it in, and it was good but knew it could be better. Thought about climbing in/out the boat several times and really didn't want to do that again. Almost stopped and installed drive but decided to get the tool. Placed it on the alignment bar and pushed the bar and tool flush with the bell housing.
I could see with ease that the port side needed to go down maybe a 3/4 turn and the starboard side need to go down a bit less. Pulled bar out, climbed in, adjusted nuts what I thought would work, then shoved bar back in. The tool wnet in even easier this time. now noticed it only maybe needed an touch more on the port side, did that and talk about sliding in like butter, wow.
I would bet you could make one of these tools without knowing any more then the diameter of the alignment bar main diameter. The larger area would be helpful to get close to the same size as the bell housing, but I was able to see how it needed to be adjusted by seeing the gap between the tool face and the bell housing face.
The answer to adjusting alignment with ease is needing something that has a flat surface perpendicular to the alignment bar. This way there is no need to read the marks on the bar coming from the coupler.
Do wish I took pics to post the before and after, but it was easy to read
