by mike » Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:10 pm
Hi Doug,
Sorry I havn't got back to you, have been away to have the boat lifted for antfouling & replace the piece of keel we left in Norway! Then the system wouldn't let me post anything saying I hadn't paid! Hopefully this is all been cleared.
If you want I'll get you some pics of what I did, our Aquadrive system uses an original bulkhead which is around 2" thick glassed into the hull. On the aft side we have (new this winter) a 8mm stain less steel plate through bolted with 6 bolts to the bulkhead, the drive unit is connected to this so that it is all under pressure against the bulkhead when going ahead, only when going astern are the bolts in tension.
The original was a 1/2" steel plate which when I removed it was around 3/4" thich owing to corrosion, it use to constantly run red rust into the bilge. Who ever fitted it didn't have a clue what they were doing as they had carefully glassed over it on the AFt side which wasn't of any use only serving to make it a B.... to get out. I had to drill a couple of hundred holes in the radius of the glass between the hull side & the plate then split it out with a sharp chisel. When I got it loose I found I still couldn't remove it from the hull because of the exhaust pipe, I tried to cut it in two with a slitting disk but after 1/2 an hour and only gone an inch i abonned it & removed the original cross member strut that took the old thrust block. Only then could I lift it out. But before that having cut the glass off the face I still had to remove the glass from the sides of the hull which prevented the plate moving aft. I was glad to see that whoever had fitted it had failed to prep the hul & had left the gel flow coat shiny so the glass hadn't bonded to it, I was able to split it away from the hull sides with a broad brick chisel. Needless to say the new one isn't glassed into place, the only glass was a couple of layers applied just as I fitted the stainless plate between the the bulkhead & the plate to take out any un-evenness. Runs as smooth as a clock.
If you want pics come back to me
mike
