Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

[turbosetch]

I searched high and low here on the forum but can't seem to find any direction.

This is a 1973 888 Mercruiser Sterndrive with a Ford 302. In neutral as I increase engine speed I get a shuddering that vibrates the whole boat.

When the stern drive is down and in gear if I make a really tight turn right or left I get a clicking sound from the stern.

Today I took the stern drive off and began inspecting parts. The u-joints and gimbal bearing was replaced 6 years ago. I don't feel any play in the u-joints as I twist them by hand. If I reach in and rotate the gimbal bearing it rolls nice and smooth.

Any ideas?? I was thinking of just replacing the u-joints and bearing again. I just got the boat but I have some service records. It looks like the bell housing was replaced and possibly the engine coupler as well about 6 years ago.

Any help would be great I hate to not be able to fix this but I have no idea what to look for now.

 

[Don S]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I've found MANY bad ujoints that felt good.

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

Does the above description fit that of bad ujoints?? I can get the repair kit for $89 so its not to much to just throw at it but I sure would like to make sure to solve the problem.

By the way getting that pre-alpha sterndrive off is not fun. It has these pins that hold it together on the sides. Getting them out has been a real joy!! NOT

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

Don,
Noticed your in Alaska...me too. Palmer here.

 

[Bondo]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

By the way getting that pre-alpha sterndrive off is not fun. It has these pins that hold it together on the sides. Getting them out has been a real joy!! NOT

For the U-joints,+ Gimbel Bearing,.....??.......
You Don't Need to seperate the Gimbel Housing.....
Just Pull the 8 Nuts,+ the Drive.......

I Agree with Don,....
I've had Many U-joints that Felt Fine, But when disassembled, there are Ridges on the cross-bearings.....

The Violent Shaking you describe sounds like the Motor Skipping.....

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I am going to replace the bellows and shift cable while I am in there thats why I pulled the whole unit off.

Motor skipping? Not sure what that means. I just got done replacing everything on the motor. Cap, rotor, wires, condesor, points, alternator, starter. At idle the timing is dead on doesn't jump or miss. Just seems to vibrate around 1200-2000 rpm that shakes the boat. Engine sounds smooth though.

I am going to try starting it with the sterndrive disconnected and check for the shuddering.

Still pretty lost on the whole u-joint and gimbal bearing deal. Is there any way to check u-joints and bearing once they are out on the bench or taken apart as I have?

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

Have you checked the alignment of the drive? It seems that gross misalignment could load things up and possibly cause vibration and noise.

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I will check that. The whole sterndrive came off very easy so there wasn'y any serious binding on the drive line.

I sure hate these sorts of problems. Turns into a bunch of trial and error repair.

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

Alright back with some update and no answers.

So I replaced the u-joints, rebuilt the upper part of the outdrive, new gimbal, new seals. Checked the engine coulpler.

All went back together fine.

Start the boat up in neutral and there is a slight vibration still. As I throttle up out of gear the vibrations becomes very strong around 1000-2500 rpm. In and out of gear in the water with the same results..

Ignition system is all replaced. I ran it and started to pull wires one at a time to isolate a cyl not firing and found no problems. Each wire pulled made a difference in the idle speed and sound.

Engine mounts are all looking good.

Again this a 73 Ford 302 with an 888 sterndrive. It has the merc distributer with the holley carb. I also replaced the points with electronic conversion and no difference....

Any ideas...I'm out of them..

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

You could run the engine without the drive on. You will have to get water to the engine somehow since you won't be able to run it on muffs.

Did you check the alignment of the drive before you put it back on? If so, did you check it and then recheck it with the engine rotated 180 degrees?

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

It has a heat exchanger and circulates coolant so no water with the outdrive off would be ok for short period.

I aligned the new gimabl bearing with the actual drive shaft while I had it apart replacing the u-joints and yoke. I didn't read or know anything about turning around 180 and re-checking.

I should have started it with the outdrive off. I thought about it but didnt.

To be honest I find it hard to believe how strong the vibration is. Rattles everything in the cabin in neutral!!

Some one mentioned a balancing pully on the front could be out 180 degrees after being reinstalled. Any idea on these old ford 302's how to check that balance wheel or even if that could do it?

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I wouldn't run the motor at all without water going through it because water cools your exhaust going through all the rubber parts that connect your risers to your sterndrive.

An alignment bar is way better to check the alignment with than the drive shaft because you can use the grease that gets scraped off of the alignment bar to determine slightly high or low.

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I agree. I would only need to start it for 20 seconds to determin if the problem still exist though.

Well does anyone have any other thoughts of things I could check for...

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

Guess I got everyone stumped on this.

Has anyone ever run into problems with an engine being out of balance some how?

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

You need to take your drive off so that you can isolate the problem between the engine and the drive.

 

[SuperNova]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I delat with a 302 that the balancer had shifted on a few years ago. My recollection is it made o difference in the way the engine ran- we just couldn't find the timing marks with a timing light, so we brought up #1 tdc compression and looked for the marks, they were almost 180 degrees off. My only susggestion is look at the way you have the wires on the cap, most engines the distributor is wired clockwise, but the ford 302 is wired counter-clockwise, the engine will run like this, but very rough. Just a thought.
--
Stan.

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

Hmm will take a look at the wiring. When I replaced all the parts I simply copied what was in place for cap wiring.

The engine seems to run fine. Takes this big old 26' Bellboy with a flybridge up to about 26MPH on the open water with 5 adults on board. Just shakes like hell until you get it over or under that certain RPM.

I am going to go back and check TDC. I had marked 10 degrees with a yellow paint stick when I was timing it. Seems to time fine on the marks and idle around 500-600 rpm. Its hops a little on the motor mounts down there at idle but nothing major.

 

[flashback]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I don't think it should hop at all on the mounts, idling or otherwise.. and also, I believe the coupler could cause some serious vibes with no load on the drive...good luck with this as almost anything that is loose or worn could cause the symtoms you are having...

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

I should clarify..It doesn't hop. If your looking at the motor while its idling it will sort of move or buck a little bit. The motor mounts are are secure I check them.

I'm not sure how you would check the engine coupler. I did a visual inpsection and felt around it for any thing noticable but found nothing.

I hope its not the vibration dampener in the front of the engine since according to mercruiserparts its not available any more...sigh...

 

[turbosetch]

Re: Vibration In Neutral And Clicks When Turning..Any help??

UPDATED:

Ok pulled the drive yesterday and started it for a minute. Still has same vibration. So we know at least now its not the drive line or sterndrive unit.

I checked the wires and the firing order according to the manual and advice from the forum. The cap and wires are set to fire in a counter-clockwise fashion.

I readjusted the idle mixture screws and got out most of the roughness at idle.

Still around 2000rpm there is a steady vibration that shakes everything. Listening to the exhaust the engines sounds like its running perfect..no missing sounds very stead at any rpm.

Should I give up and just live with the engine vibration?? What else could I check??