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**john527** · 02-22-2014, 12:23 PM

new tower

All new tower being sized up to our new Hatchet gear case

Attached Files

**john527** · 02-25-2014, 04:41 AM

Jets

Found a good use for our $200,000 CNC lathe here at work!

Attached Files

**john527** · 02-28-2014, 06:33 PM

Hatchet tower fitted and welded for new boat

New tower welded up for the new boat...

Attached Files

**proprider** · 03-01-2014, 05:05 AM

Kick out

I like the way you set up your kick out adjustment. Enjoy seeing out-of-the-box engineering! Hope to see you guys at the races this season

**runabout333** · 03-01-2014, 08:06 AM

Can you say pristeeeeeeeeennnnn!!!!!!!!
Very nice work. Top it off by getting the tower nickel plated or zinc gold.

**john527** · 03-01-2014, 08:39 AM

Don't worry, the polishing compounds have not been out yet!

**Yellowjacket** · 03-01-2014, 10:10 AM

I don't know about the kick out arrangement.. It's really clean but for a couple of reasons there are parts of it that I don't like. I'm going on how it looks in the pictures and I'm assuming that the rod end is screwed into a piece that has a hole in it and the clevis bolt goes through that piece and pins it in place. If that's not how it works disregard all of the following.

1. It's going to be sort of cumbersome to adjust. You have to pull the rod end off and spin it. If it was turnbuckle type of arrangement that would be fantastic, but I don't see room for that kind of thing here, so I'm assuming that the rod end has to come off of the pivot bolt before you can adjust it and that will take time. I'd prefer a cam arrangement on the tilt pin because it's faster to adjust. I like what Proprider did for his adjustment method, it's easy, fast and reliable. This gives you nice fine adjustment, but it requires some unbolting to adjust and that's a bit less elegant.

2. Remember that this bracket will see tensile loads too, and if you hit something like a 2x4 in the water it's going to rip the small screws right out of the transom. I think it will be fine in normal use, but you do see tensile loads when you back off the throttle. If the mounting screws go all the way thru the transom and have washers on the other side that would be a lot better, but then if you hit something the forces will be really high and could break other things.

3. The force area for the bracket is a bit small and it will most likely compress the wood under it, cause water intrusion and eventually rot. On my boat that was run as a D mod, the bracket was about that size and was pressing thru a .080" sheet of aluminum and that's what happened under the aluminum. It eventually cracked the aluminum sheet because the wood under it got soft (and the kickout adjustment was screwy because the whole mess was soft and it wasn't holding the kickout where it was supposed to be). For that reason I'd like to see a bigger area under the bracket to spread the load out to a larger area of wood.

4. This last one is just my thoughts on general engineering, but I don't design bolts with overhung loads. Bolts should be kept in shear (like the bolt at the other end of the bracket). Just my preference and this may be fine if the loads are small enough and perhaps I'm just being picky, but overhung bolts are a failure looking for a place to happen. I'd have to run some numbers on bolt bending stress to like that aspect of it. If it's low then it's probably fine, but whenever possible bolts should be in shear. If that bolt does bend it's going to be a PITA to get it out of the clamp assembly, and you will most likely have to cut it off to get it apart. JMHO on that one, may be ok, just don't like the looks of that part of it.

I know this is a lot cleaner than a rope around the tower and I like that, but I think that a cam arrangement on the tilt pin works just as well for fast adjustment, and I'd be careful and watch for how this looks after a while to make sure it isn't going to let the wood get wet. If the system was set up so that it couldn't see tensile loads, and some other method of preventing the tower from kicking back was there, I'd like it a lot more.

**blueskyracer** · 03-01-2014, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by john527 View Post

New tower welded up for the new boat...

Looks real nice and should get the job done

**john527** · 03-01-2014, 11:36 AM

[QUOTE=Yellowjacket;234681]I don't know about the kick out arrangement.. It's really clean but for a couple of reasons there are parts of it that I don't like. I'm going on how it looks in the pictures and I'm assuming that the rod end is screwed into a piece that has a hole in it and the clevis bolt goes through that piece and pins it in place. If that's not how it works disregard all of the following.

1. It's going to be sort of cumbersome to adjust. You have to pull the rod end off and spin it. If it was turnbuckle type of arrangement that would be fantastic, but I don't see room for that kind of thing here, so I'm assuming that the rod end has to come off of the pivot bolt before you can adjust it and that will take time. I'd prefer a cam arrangement on the tilt pin because it's faster to adjust. I like what Proprider did for his adjustment method, it's easy, fast and reliable. This gives you nice fine adjustment, but it requires some unbolting to adjust and that's a bit less elegant.

2. Remember that this bracket will see tensile loads too, and if you hit something like a 2x4 in the water it's going to rip the small screws right out of the transom. I think it will be fine in normal use, but you do see tensile loads when you back off the throttle. If the mounting screws go all the way thru the transom and have washers on the other side that would be a lot better, but then if you hit something the forces will be really high and could break other things.

3. The force area for the bracket is a bit small and it will most likely compress the wood under it, cause water intrusion and eventually rot. On my boat that was run as a D mod, the bracket was about that size and was pressing thru a .080" sheet of aluminum and that's what happened under the aluminum. It eventually cracked the aluminum sheet because the wood under it got soft (and the kickout adjustment was screwy because the whole mess was soft and it wasn't holding the kickout where it was supposed to be). For that reason I'd like to see a bigger area under the bracket to spread the load out to a larger area of wood.

4. This last one is just my thoughts on general engineering, but I don't design bolts with overhung loads. Bolts should be kept in shear (like the bolt at the other end of the bracket). Just my preference and this may be fine if the loads are small enough and perhaps I'm just being picky, but overhung bolts are a failure looking for a place to happen. I'd have to run some numbers on bolt bending stress to like that aspect of it. If it's low then it's probably fine, but whenever possible bolts should be in shear. If that bolt does bend it's going to be a PITA to get it out of the clamp assembly, and you will most likely have to cut it off to get it apart. JMHO on that one, may be ok, just don't like the looks of that part of it.

I know this is a lot cleaner than a rope around the tower and I like that, but I think that a cam arrangement on the tilt pin works just as well for fast adjustment, and I'd be careful and watch for how this looks after a while to make sure it isn't going to let the wood get wet. If the system was set up so that it couldn't see tensile loads, and some other method of preventing the tower from kicking back was there, I'd like it a lot more.[/QUOTE

DISREGARDED! also, ropes will be used to hold tower.
Thanks for your thoughts.