Question about engine bed

[Discoverie]

I’m installing a new engine and need to widen the stringers supporting the engine mounts. Once the engine was out, and after lots of scrubbing, I was surprised to see the bed and supporting structure. The actual fiberglass supporting the mounts seems thin, no more than .125 inches thick. The bottom of the pan seems to be glassed over plywood and pretty thin too, you can see the wood grain through the fiberglass. The fiberglass work appears to be low quality, with rough edges and some holes thinly patched. (See pic)

I’m thinking this was a amature hack and the the original engine bed and pan were modified at some point.

Question to thousand of you who have pulled your engine, is this a normal installation, or has it been changed? If it was changed, what did normal look like? While I’ve got the engine out, I can fix things up.

I had a couple of other thoughts but will wait for comments from the Pearson hive mind.

Thanks much,
Roger
Discoverie
#203

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[Discoverie]

Question should read:

To those of you who have pulled your engine, is this a normal installation, or has it been changed? If it was changed, what did normal look like? While I’ve got the engine out, I can fix things up.

Tkx,
rb

[RichCarter]

This should probably answer most questions you have about repowering.
http://www.richardcarter.net/repower/

Briefly, if you plan to repower, you probably need to have the engine pan replaced. The geometry of replacement engines differ.

[typhoontye]

Hello Roger,

Your engine bed appears to me to be a modified original. Look mostly like mine. I can’t speak to the thin ness of the material where the vibration absorbers mount, but can say mine are probably around 3/16 inch and seem adequate for the job. As I said, mine looks mainly like yours, but not exactly. On mine, the entire bottom of the pan is cut out, presumably to make clearance for what I believe to be the skeg mount studs, which protrude vertically. The drawback of this arrangement is that oil that drips, inevitably, does not stay in the pan, but can drain to the bilge. I suspect someone modified yours to correct this deficiency. Just a guess. Perhaps some others on the forum can speak more intelligently to this…

David

[Author]

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