To Don, where does Tilt Spacer go OMC Cobra Rams

[paulcierra26]

Hello Don, I have nearly completed my 1988 OMC King Cobra to Volvo Penta DPS conversion. I had the boat in the water and it works incredibly well! It feels and works like a new boat. One small problem though, your writeup explains that there are spacers to g inside the rams to prevent the cylinders from being trimmed down to far and causing damage. I have bought the spacers and took the rams apart but I can not figure out where the spacers go. The diameter of the ram shaft is bigger than the hole in the spacer? Do you simply pull out the piston assembly and place the spacer in the bottom of the ram assembly (tube)? The spacer diameter is kinda small for this idea though, it would rattle around down in the bottom of the the ram tube as the spacer diameter is quite a bit smaller than the ram body diameter. The spacer part # is 3857376.
The conversion I am doing is the exact same as the one you did according to your write up and pictures from when you did yours.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Signed , so close to going boating in BC.

 

[Don S]

Re: To Don, where does Tilt Spacer go OMC Cobra Rams

If you read what I said before I deleted it, disregard. I was thinking of the trim limit spacers.

 

[Don S]

Re: To Don, where does Tilt Spacer go OMC Cobra Rams

I had to think for a minute, It's been a long time since I did one of those.
After you remove the trim ram piston and rod. Put the spacer into the trim cylinder, then put the rod and piston assembly in.
You don't want the drive to trim down too far. The original drive aft pin location on the lower unit was farther out than the DP-S drives.