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This happened on a friends 2004 Sport 206. We noticed some vibrations during acceleration and thought maybe there was some prop damage or something, upon inspection we found that 1 of the cutlass bearings had actually worked its way out of the strut! The one furthest from the prop had fully come out of the strut and was just there on the shaft. We were able to slide it back into position with a little help from some dish soap, but I was surprised that it went in so easily. The set screws in the strut were all pretty loose so we tightened them up and so far so good. I've only replaced these bearings once (on a different boat) and they were tough to get out and OK to get in with the proper tool. I slid this one back in by hand. Am a little concerned so thought I'd see if anyone has experienced a cutlass bearing popping out before and what you did to fix.
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That shouldn't happen. The only thing that I can think of is the press fit was not tight enough between the strut and bearing. The set screws really serve no purpose with a proper press fit, I just put silicone in the holes. I replaced my bearing last year with a glide bearing and I'm very happy with it. The alignment was off a lot too so I ended up replacing the shaft as well.
Have you checked the shaft alignment at the transmission? It is not difficult to check the alignment, there is a good video on youtube with it titled "Inboard Shaft Alignment 101". That would be my first thing to check.
What did the shaft look like where the bearing was before you put it back in the strut?
If you pull the bearings to replace and they do no press in, you could peen the bore of the strut or possibly get oversized bearings from glide. -
Alignment is good, and we can spin the prop easily by hand when it's dry. We didn't pull the shaft so couldn't see what it looked like where it makes contact with the bearing. That said, this boat only has 93 hours on it and was used in freshwater only, so I can't fathom the bearings having worn. Once the bearing was back in, if I grab the prop or shaft and try to move it back and forth there is no play in the strut, so it looks like a good fit. We'll keep an eye on it and if it starts slipping I think we'll look to replace the both in the spring. I supposed if new ones are also too easy to put in them we'd be looking at a new strut that has the correct bore sizing.Comment
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If your alignment is good, I'm assuming you checked it like the video, it just sounds like your strut is too large. If it were me, I would pay close attention to it the rest of the year and pull the shaft this winter. Then push the cutlass bearings out and get the bore measured with internal mics or a dial bore gauge. You can then get appropriately sized bearings from glide. They will custom machine them to the bore. That would be way less money and hassle then to pull the strut!
When I replaced my bearings, etc my strut was tweaked slightly and the alignment to the thru hull was off. Instead of pulling it, I tweaked it back!
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