I/O (Sterndrive) Conversion to Outboards

[flashback]

Way I see it, your bolt threads will be coated with putty, may as well just run the nuts up and call it good. I've mostly experienced galling when removing the nuts not so much on installation.
I also think you may want to put a spacer type border, a tad less thick than the spacers, around the big access holes so the putty doesn't get squeegeed out too much.

 

[tpenfield]

If it's not grinding, it's drilling . . .

I went through several cobalt bits . . . amazing what a sharp drill can do . . .

It reminds be of way back, when I was a young engineer in an electronics manufacturing company. The VP said "the printed circuit board fabrication line was having problems . . . go check it out" . . . A couple of weeks later things were running smoother. He asked what the solution was . . . I said "drill bit sharpening. . . . "

Anyway, I digress. After several days . . . here are the bolt holes.
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34 bolts on the transom faces and 10 bolts overhead . . . 44 total. I may add a few more once the extension bracket is installed. When I had 80 bolts in the plans, the naval architect told me I could go with about half that number. So it is . . .

I have installed/removed the extension bracket a several times over the past few days. Each time I check the alignment to make sure the thing is not 'walking around' on me. Looks good and repeatable.
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That will be important when I install the E-B for real, but I will check it then anyway.

 

[tpenfield]

There have been a couple of warmer /sunny days this week. So, I got the side supports for the transom glassed. I did 2 layers on both sides (4 layers total) 'wet-on-wet' and wrapped them in plastic to hold the glass tight to the core pieces while they cured. It worked out pretty good.
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Each of the 3 transom support 'knees' have over 2 sq. in. of fiberglass in their cross section, so conservatively 30,000 lbs of strength in each of the 3.

 

[Lpgc]

Edmund Fitzgerald and British ship Hood. Come to mind.

Been re-reading the early parts of this thread because I'd forgotten some of the reasoning for converting from inboards to outboards. Sorry for going off subject a bit now, couldn't resist saying my grandad was on HMS Prince Of Wales when Hood was destroyed so saw it happen, one of his friends was on Hood at the time and was one of the 3 survivors. Grandad played cards with Churchill and Roosevalt on Prince Of Wales and was on P.O.W. when it too was destroyed by the Japs. At first he and a few others laughed at the planes, especially when some crashed into the ship's 18" thick armour exploding but causing only minor damage, not laughing so much after a torpedo bent their propshaft and rudder and the bent shaft broke all the shaft seals between watertight compartments though. I wonder if it would've turned out differently if they'd stopped the engines after the propshaft got bent because that would've prevented flooding from the rear going forwards, it probably wouldn't have listed and other torpedoes might all have run into the armour belt instead of the thinner areas of ship they hit due to the listing.

If P.O.W had outboards there wouldn't have been any flooding from a bent propshaft