Puzzling about engine alignment, motor mounts, engine weight in rough seas

[Dave G.]

Dave G, I did the 3 to 4 mount conversion with a plate at the front. This did wonders for vibrations on my boat and seems very secure. Additional vibration reduction was achieved with a smaller Campbell Sailor prop.

M25xp, convert from 3 point mount to 4?

While eyeballing Beta Marine engines at the Chicago Boat Show this weekend I mentioned to the rep my problems with trying to vanquish vibration at certain RPM with the M25xp on my E34. He claimed that the largest cause of vibration problems associated with this engine is due to the 3 point...

ericsonyachts.org

That is good to know. I presume you also have a 5416 ? Did you use the same type motor mounts ? Do you have a 2 or 3 blade prop ? Totally changing the subject, I was reading up on keel rebedding and came across Frank Langer's posts and pics about same. He said that he had 7 1" keel bolts on his 30+, my boat has 10 3/4" keel boats. Curious what your boat has ?

 

[bigd14]

Hi Dave, I have the M18 engine. I used the Iso Flex yellow mounts, and a three blade Campbell Sailor prop. And 7 keel bolts. Do you have the cabin top traveler and the beveled cockpit seats? Or do you have the earlier model with the bridge deck traveler?

 

[Dave G.]

Mine has a bridgedeck traveler. Built 19 boats before yours. I'm thinking these were options not necessarily a date thing as I saw a listing for a 85 model with the traveler on the bridgedeck but who knows. Are your bolts 1" or 3/4" ? Is your engine original ?

 

[bigd14]

Interesting about the 1985 bridge deck-traveler boat. I believe I read on this site about a hard transition to the "refreshed" deck mold sometime in 1984, but perhaps there were some of the old and new molds in production at the same time so the hull numbers may not reflect a sudden transition. Or maybe it was an aftermarket traveler move? Frank's (#637) has the refreshed deck if I recall correctly. The engine change from the 5416 to the M18 seems to have happened a little after the deck mold transition (maybe they had a few extra in stock). The keel bolts on mine are 1-inch in diameter. Seems like the keel bolt changes would be associated with the deck mold change. But who really knows how it all went down back then!

 

[Dave G.]

I hadn't thought of aftermarket change although I don't recall the cabin top having molded traveler mounts. I guess the listed year could have been incorrect, I never got serious enough to even verify the HIN. Yeah it's all very interesting how the change happened, Frank's was built only five hulls after mine. I guess it was a pretty significant design change and all the way down to the keel stub. The engine kind of makes sense as according to Universal the 5416 last year of production was 1983, so at some point in 1984 Ericson ran out of those and went to the new model. It would be interesting to compare the month of production on our boats to see if there was a gap at some point while they retooled.