four winns 214
Senior Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2008
- Messages
- 769
I'm posting this mostly for the archives.
My 1984 21' Sea Ray SRV210 cuddy leaned to the left at cruise power after I had my Mercruiser MR outdrive serviced. The MR outdrive is functionally the same as an Alpha 1. Before the outdrive service, the boat did not have this leaning tendency, unless it was caused by passenger load distribution within the boat. The boat is not equipped with stern mounted trim tabs.
The fix was to adjust the trim tab assembly located on the anti-cavitation plate directly above the prop. The "trim tab assembly" is the fin shaped sacrificial anode seen on most of these drives. It is the official Mercruiser parts diagram name for this component. Some call the part a "fin anode" or "torque anode". I found that the tab had been set dead on center during the outdrive service.
On my drive, the tab is fastened by a large allen screw accessed from above through the anti-cavitation plate. I loosened the screw and adjusted the trim tab to the left (as viewed from behind the outdrive looking towards the transom) until it hit a stop, which I'm guessing is approximately 15 degrees. That solved the problem.
My outdrive has a 14.5" X 19" aluminum prop on it and is powered by a Mercruiser 228R engine. I do not know what, if any, effect prop pitch or diameter has on this phenomenon.
Some Alpha 1 outdrives I've seen do not have this particular type of trim tab anode assembly, but are equipped with a plate shaped anode in this spot.
Searching "boat leans left" in the archives yields many threads and they offer a lot different solutions, but this fix seems to be one of the most common. Unfortunately, some of the original posters did not return to the thread to report what fix worked for them. This one worked for me.
My 1984 21' Sea Ray SRV210 cuddy leaned to the left at cruise power after I had my Mercruiser MR outdrive serviced. The MR outdrive is functionally the same as an Alpha 1. Before the outdrive service, the boat did not have this leaning tendency, unless it was caused by passenger load distribution within the boat. The boat is not equipped with stern mounted trim tabs.
The fix was to adjust the trim tab assembly located on the anti-cavitation plate directly above the prop. The "trim tab assembly" is the fin shaped sacrificial anode seen on most of these drives. It is the official Mercruiser parts diagram name for this component. Some call the part a "fin anode" or "torque anode". I found that the tab had been set dead on center during the outdrive service.
On my drive, the tab is fastened by a large allen screw accessed from above through the anti-cavitation plate. I loosened the screw and adjusted the trim tab to the left (as viewed from behind the outdrive looking towards the transom) until it hit a stop, which I'm guessing is approximately 15 degrees. That solved the problem.
My outdrive has a 14.5" X 19" aluminum prop on it and is powered by a Mercruiser 228R engine. I do not know what, if any, effect prop pitch or diameter has on this phenomenon.
Some Alpha 1 outdrives I've seen do not have this particular type of trim tab anode assembly, but are equipped with a plate shaped anode in this spot.
Searching "boat leans left" in the archives yields many threads and they offer a lot different solutions, but this fix seems to be one of the most common. Unfortunately, some of the original posters did not return to the thread to report what fix worked for them. This one worked for me.