1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 refit

[jim rosenthal]

How big are the shafts? the wheels look huge on there.

[q240z]

1-3/4" A22. With 450hp and 1.5:1 gear, these shafts have a safety factor of 5.

Would you believe they ran 1-1/2 A17 shafts in at least one steel Roamer with 871s? That boat has 2:1 Allisons and 28" props!

[jim rosenthal]

That boat had a shaft safety factor in negative numbers, I bet.

[q240z]

And yet, 40+ years later...she's still running strong.

A buddy with a 45' Pacemaker running 871s, Allisons, etc with 1-3/4" shafts and 28x28 props attempted to drive the boat into the planet core a few months ago. Ran seriously hard aground coming out of Baltimore. I was helping him make the run. Since it was his turn at the helm, I was tearing the horns apart and just found some badly corroded contacts inside. I reached for the emery cloth when all the sudden WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM.! Turns out my buddy, a sailor, was so completely mesmerized by the thrum of the Detroits and the AMAZING speed (15kts...unattainable in his ragboat) that he paid attention to the depth sounder but not the charts or plotter. It's amazing how hard the planet can be when you go from 7' of depth to 2.5 in an area on the chart marked everywhere with twos, threes, and fours. After the crash we limped all the way to Harrington Harbor, where they hauled the boat and found the props wadded into balls of bronze...which explained why she was such a pig to dock! There was also a shaft bent at the prop on one side, and the muff coupler on the other with both keys and pins sort of merged all into one. It took a saw to remove one prop and one coupler. The shafts, though, did not snap.

So, I'm fairly sure my same-sized shafts with little 24x22 props and 1.5:1 gears will hold up OK. So long as I don't try to tunnel into the planet!

[lake of the woods]

Q, what was used to get your wheels so nice and shiny.
My wheels (Michigan - nibradl) are clean as a whistle but would love to see them shine like yours.

Mark B
Lake of the woods

[q240z]

They came back from the prop shop that way. It looks like they maybe used a belt sander with very fine grit abrasive, but that's just a guess.

[q240z]

The Prussian blue and a 2" socket finally came in, so I got the props lapped and installed. Scrod -- check out dem nuts.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Props

Cheers,
Q

[Avenger]

All this talk about shafts and nuts is making me a little uncomfortable.

[jim rosenthal]

Q you have them reversed LOL

[Boatsb]

Q you have them reversed LOL

Left to right reversed?