Dateline bikini shaft coupling

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Help!!
I've put my jetboat on the blocks at my local garage for an engine replacement, however once the ford V6 was removed we found that the rubber shaft coupling was broken. Does anyone recognise the part I need and perhaps know where I might find one, also while I'm at it I'm not sure what make the jet drive is the only identifying mark is WESTEND written on the end.
Please help, any advice greatfully recieved as I am stuck.

[pricey797]

hi i have the same problem and have sourced some drive couplings from a local garage off a ford granada only problem i have is i do not know how to put it back together as you need to fit the bell housing first which leaves no room for working on the drive coupling if you know how to do it please could you post it on here cheers
pricey

[Frosty]

There seems to be a shaft missing. Obviously if you put on the bell housing you cant make the conection.

But there should be another shaft that has been ripped out of the end coupling. This should be bolted up and then fed into the drive plate that should be bolted to the flywheel.

Those drive couplings was at one time from the old Hillman imp as a cv joint for the rear drive shaft

Ok so Ford use them too -probably a prop shaft centre bearing flexible coupling.

can you post some more pics--the back of the engine and flywheel-- and the shaft that goes into the coupling

[pricey797]

there definatly is nothing missing as it was running and driving before i stripped it all beit noisey so ther is nothing missing the flywheel has a fitting onto which i put one of the couplings, then there is a spacer type thing onto which goes the second coupling, which then goes onto the jet drive ,the bell housing has a hole in the bottom to allow access but there is no room to work and you would be working blind so to speak,unless there is enough room to rotate the housing to one side and work it side on through the hole.
any more ideas would be greatly appreciated as if i can't get it together i may be forced to rip it all out and make her uo to take an outboard.

[Frosty]

Ok,-- I can see now that, that IS the flywheel.

All I can suggest is that it is one of those bastard jobs. It would help to find out where the hole in the bell housing lines up. By that I mean which coupling is meant to be accessable by the hole. That must be the one you are supposed to conect through the hole.
The rubber doughnuts as we used to call then come with a metal strap around it to keep it slightly compressed, dont take this off untill it is fitted what ever you do,-- you will never get the bolts in otherwise, or the strap back on.

I would think that the bell housing would be able to twist around so the hole is at the top ( with out the bolts in of course) then twist it back again after to align correctly.

Thats all I can think of-- not a nice job.

[anthony goodson]

Dont use hillman imp doughnuts they are not strong enough and can explode,use Metallastic couplings as used on early lotus elans
good luck

[anthony goodson]

Dateline Bikinis often had PP 65 jets can you post a photo ?

[DavidTombs]

I'm struggling with the same problem in a Rover V8/ PP jet installation. I ended up disasembling the Jet drive to get to the coupling bolts in the first place, accessing them through the transom hole with just the jet drive shaft remaining sticking out through it. Now I could put it back together in the reverse order - fit the coupling, the jet shaft and then the jet housings. However the bell housing in my installation appears to just be there to fix the distance between the engine and the jet drive - it has a single 'engine mount' style fixing onto the top of the jet drive. Having removed and looked at the bell housing (after supporting the back of the engine to stop it falling) I'm considering cutting a segment slot out of the bottom of the bell housing, below the left and right lowest bolts that mount it to the engine, so that it can be removed ( or installed in this case) with the coupling/shaft already attached. It seems to me that this 'bottom' segment of the bell housing isn't offering any real structural input as it's not bolted to anything. Any thoughts either way ?

[pricey797]

i was thinking exactly the same as you cutting out the bottom of the bell housing a nd trying to put it together like that must be worth a try nothing to loose as i am thinkin of selling it as a project plenty of interest but no offers as yet,let me know how you get on if you decide to cut it

[eponodyne]

Just eyeballing it, it looks like the rubber doughnuts from an E30-body BMW 325I might be just the ticket. Easily sourced and reasonably priced.

Seems to me that if the part isn't going to be immersed in water, there's no real reason you couldn't torch a small access hole in the bellhousing for wrench access.

[Frosty]

I think thats the way to go,--cut a hole in the bell housing . Some old engines only had a top half, and in any case most engines only have a thin steel plate at the bottom to keep road dirt out.

Unless the engine and gearbox becomes a full load component like that of a tractor for example it would only transmit torque.

[anthony goodson]

Hi
If the rover engine uses original main mounts they are very large and in the middle of the block.these will take all the torque and most of the load,do away with the bellhousing and make up two brackets to bolt to the back face of the block use fairly substantial cotton reel mounts for these, I stress this can only be done if the original rover mid block mounts are used This way you can see what you are doing when aligning the coupling
The rubber doughnuts are made by metalastic ,do not use hillman imp ones they will fit but can explode
tony

[Frosty]

Im not one to enjoy disagreeing but if the engine was mounted central and the shaft was flexible i think you could well get a bit of a wobble. However if the engine was mounterd fore and aft then yes I would agree about doing away with the bell housing altogether infact this is what you would call a jack shaft fitted engine.

Or keep the central mounts to take the torque and fit extra mounts at the front (even a single mount) to take the wobble out.

It would make for a nice quite installation and a worthy modification.

[Frosty]

Ive just been thinking more about this. If it were mine and not wanting to do spend a lot of money. I would consider adapting a spline from a prop shaft bolted to the fywheel and the female component modified to fit on the last dough nut.

Installation would then mean align the splines with your hand --get your hand out of the way and push the engine home.

The spline portion could infact be any where on the shaft, as long as you could reach if for alignment.

The spline of course would give you some serious tolerance of measurement.

[anthony goodson]

This isnt conjecture I have done it this way 4 times and it works

Tony