Cutless Bearings

[Fowl Habit]

Hey guy's, I just took the plunge from the clamp on's to an in out and am wondering where a guy can find cutless bearings. I run a mud boat in the sand and am having trouble keeping them alive. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks

 

[snapperbait]

Re: Cutless Bearings

No miracle cutlass bearings that I know of... Think you're stuck with the rubber.. <br /><br />Shaft's gotta be taking a beating with all the sand..

 

[rodbolt]

Re: Cutless Bearings

is this an I/O or an inboard ?

 

[Fowl Habit]

Re: Cutless Bearings

This is a weird sort of deal. It is a Cheverolet crate motor bolted to a ZF tranny then to a custom mud drive. It's an in/out sort of. Here is the boat.<br /><br />

<br /><br />

<br /><br />more pics <br /><br />They call this a super mud boat. I bought the hull from a crazy cajun in Louisiana.<br /><br /><br />As silly as it sounds, Snapper hooked me up with the right spelling which opened a hole new door on the search engines. Have any of you guy's heard of Vesconite? I read a little on it and it sounds like it may wear a little better than the rubber. It's not a problem yet, but the bearing is starting to wear and yes, the shaft gets eaten alive. The other question I have is there a brand of Cutlass bearings that live longer or are better than others? I'm seeing price swings from $45-$80. My bearing is 1 1/4 x 2 x 5

 

[Bondo]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Cool Boat.................<br /><br />An Everglades airboat hull, with what Looks like an Arnson surface drive...........<br /><br />I want 1..............

 

[ziggy]

Re: Cutless Bearings

sorry man i got no info for ya but i wanted to let everyone in on what the power squadran has to say about these. i've never seen one personaly, yours is way cool. they call this drive surface piercing. and bondo is right on, developed by an engineer named Arneson. the Arneson drive. the Arneson drive allows for more efficient hp utilization by using an output shart that is on the same plane as the bottom of the hull. w/o the drag from outboards or i/o's greater speeds are possibile w/o increased hp. thats pretty much what they say about themz. not much help for you Steve, but ya got a mighty fine toy to play with, thats for sure, good luck with it.<br />I do have a question for ya if ya could though. where is the cutlass brg. i associate a cutlass brg with a inboard, straight drive, v or angle drive? where is the cutlass brg. on this Arneson drive? jim

 

[snapperbait]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Holy mud boats, Bat man.... <br /><br />Hummmmmm! I must investigte that deal.. Looks like the solution to an inboard flats boat...<br /><br />That surface drive ain't no Arneson.. Thats something else, entirely... Looks "fabricated"... <br /><br />Something to consider... I'm wondering if the cutlass bearing is getting enuff water ??? Maybe a design problem???

 

[ziggy]

Re: Cutless Bearings

snapper, why not Arneson drive? what do you think that is different. the only diff. that i see compared to the pic of a Arneson drive i see in my books is that my pic is of a v drive. i know nothing other than what i'm reading, which is basic stuff. but the surface peirceing drive must at least be assocated with the Arneson drive? wow man that thing must have less draft than my fx140.... whew,,,,,,a platt river boat, which only runs airboats, canoes, or 4X4's . jim

 

[Fowl Habit]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Jim, yes the bearing is in the drive right in front of the prop.<br /><br />

<br /><br />The drive is a custom built chromoly mud drive. It may be based on the type your talking about but this one is hand made.<br /><br />A design problem may very well be, but I'll come clean with you guy's. I parked it twice in one weekend completly out of water on sand bars. The boats digs it's self right out but is tough on the equipment. However, this does happen every now and then so at this point I'm just looking for something that might wear better and not be so tough on the shaft. I realize it's gonna be a maintnace deal running this thing in the sand, just looking to see if theres a better mouse trap out there. I can machine down any type of material to fit. Just not sure if it's worth messing with or if there is a heavy duty bearing that i don't know about.<br /><br />Ziggy, with the chopper prop I was running this weekend, we were running across 100' sand bars with 2-4 inches of water and just slightly dragging. It didn't really ever slow down much running at 45 mph. The thing is a dream in vegetation and silty bottoms it'll jump up and get on plane within 20' of where you floored it. This type of rig would not work well if there is a chance of hitting gravel bottoms. It would get expensive quick with props running $800 - $1200. It is alot of fun to run it but it's not exactly a pleasure boat. She's a handfull as you can imagine

 

[ziggy]

Re: Cutless Bearings

cool, 2-4" is a little less than i want to run my jet in, whew, like about 18-20" less. man that drive is amazing but i can see that it perhaps is not a pleasure boat and may require a bit of maint. thanks for the info and pics. never a dull day if ya learned something new. jim

 

[Buttanic]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Better not let the SEAL's in Coronado see it, they might commandeer it for use in Irac.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: Cutless Bearings

hello<br /> almost looks like a go-devil out back . anyway with that water cooled bearing here is a trick we learned from years of digging sportfishers off the bars around oregon inlet. it may require some fabrication on your part. close off the shaft area fwd of the cutlass bearing. then drill and tap and install a 1/2" water inlet between the saft packing and the cutlass bearing. use a water tap from the raw water and use the raw water discharge from the engine to cool and flush the cutlass bearing. we went from eating one per month to 3 a year. the next trick is getting a machine shope to fabricating a shaft wear sleeve. otherwise you will find them shafts eat almost as bad as the cutlass bearing. we were eating up 4 and 5 shafts a year along with the bearings.<br /> I dont see one in the photo but the other thing that is a must is a set of good very large capacity raw water filters. we have a parrelel pair so we can clean one while running on the other. lets face it when they pile a 60 to 80 ft boat on the bar we may spend 5 to 10 hours digging him off. the only way to do it is by washing the sand out from under it with the prop wash. sand digging is something I have some experience with.<br /> also check the coast guard regs as well as state and local ones about that "hot" or "dry stack" exhaust in a closed engine compartment. good luck and I hope the ideas help.

 

[Fowl Habit]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Fabrication is not a problem, but getting raw water out of the system is impossible. The boat runs a closed cooling system with heat exchangers so it stays cool while running in mud and vegetation. That probably would help matters a little but it's only wearing bad when i'm "digging out" There was no wear after 20 hours and mild sand contact rubbing bottom when taking off. Now after getting stuck, there is at least 1/8" of play and the shaft has definate wear.<br /><br />Now the shaft wear sleeve sounds like something I'm after. Is this a brass sleeve over the shaft where the bearing rides the shaft? I take it i'd have to cut the bearing over sized to fit the sleeve?<br /><br />Not sure about the CG regs and the exhaust. The only people that mess with us where I run it are US fish and wildlife officers and ocasionaly the Sherrif. I've had USFWS all over the thing and they said nothing to me about it. I can run the boat for hours and reach back and hold the exhaust. The only part that gets hot is the last 6" of the tips.<br /><br />Thanks for the ideas Rod!

 

[tommays]

Re: Cutless Bearings

si<br /> thomson makes a SS SHAFTING that is 55 rockwell and will custom machine 1 piece at good prices<br /><br /> http://www.danahermotion.com/Sectio...?PC=2000000&CL=1&lang=1&IT=Descrip&L1=2000000 <br /><br />i use them for shafts that need a hard bearing area<br /><br />tommays

 

[ddaigle]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Like your boat! Im in the process of customizing my panther air boat. Its an out board right now and I can run in about 4-5 inches, but I have plans for a drive similar to yours. But I plan to use an automatic tranny so I have some gears for power or speed. Something Dhadley told me for getting water to my outboard may help you. He said you can run a livewell pump from a livewell or similar container for short periods of time to the motor, I bet you could run a tube to the bearing for those short periods just to keep some of the sand flushed away. Just a thought. Im one of those crazy cajuns transplanted to Texas.

 

[Fowl Habit]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Tom, thanks for the link. Bookmarked it for when i'm ready to look for a shaft.<br /><br />ddaigle, I've looked into and researched thoroughly the idea of using over drives and different tranny's. The feedback I got was lots of sheared shafts and not worth the money for the gains.<br /><br />When the boat is being used to dig out of the sand, there is little to no water. I have to dig a trench with a shovel to let water in the hole so i can forward reverse my way out of it. Being the boat is pretty new to me, I have not quite perfected the method and am sure I beat the crap out of the drive and prop the first time. Second time went pretty easy. With all that being said, when I really need water on that bearing, the only water to draw from will either be completly full of sand or there will be no water at all to pump into it. That filter setup may handle the sandy water. This thing digs trenches in sand bars you would not believe. Last time I parked it i got out, we took my push pole over to the "trench". The pole is 12 feet long and I could not touch bottom. It was 6' wide and went at least 50 yards. It was the first time this year the water had dropped like that. I run this river at least 200 hours a year and I cover well over 1500 miles chassing birds. Later in the summer we travel quite a bit as well but the water is 4 feet deeper.<br /><br /> http://www.vesconite.com/industry/applications/marine/jackson.htm <br /><br />I'm still thinking of giving the vesconite a try and see if that doesn't make a difference. Only thing that has me worried is the RPM i'm turning the drive. It is a 1:1 drive so it's turning 5,000 WOT. If any of you have any input on the link above it would be most appreciated. Thanks

 

[tommays]

Re: Cutless Bearings

i use a lot of different exotic materials like peek a high teck plastic (about 175 $ a foot)on shafts that run as high as 9000 rpm and unless the clearence is tight enough or there is a positve pressure to keep material out of the bearing the sand will always win against rubber<br /><br />i do use Tungsten carbide or silicon carbide for really bad areas but I don’t know if you could get a bushing made but i think in your use you could use a bronze bushing in that area and get better results<br /><br />tommays

 

[Fowl Habit]

Re: Cutless Bearings

http://www.vesconite.com/prod/hilube.htm <br /><br />That was the link i meant to give you guy's. <br /><br />They are saying that Vesconite will out live any rubber or bronze bushing available. I have a mill and lathe out in the shop so gettin r done isn't the issue. It's more about which material to try.

 

[stanlkl]

Re: Cutless Bearings

Call Southeastern Foundries in NC. They are the distributor for Orkot bearing material which is much more durable than typical rubber cutlass bearings. Orkot bearings were initially used in large ships. The material has now found its way into smaller boat/yacht applications. The bearings are normally freeze-fitted. However, I believe shell versions are now available.<br /><br />Southeastern Foundries<br />2706 Oakland Ave<br />Greensboro, NC 27403-1939<br />Phone: (336) 299-7211

 

[ddaigle]

Re: Cutless Bearings

I think you misunderstood me. The water would be stored in a livewell or other container before you beach the boat and then could be pumped to the bearing and prop when needed. This setup is intended for outboards to cross sandbars to supply cooling water, but thought it might work for you. Plan to run the auto trans mainly for high speed cruising to lower the rpms from 5000 to about 3000 to help improve economy and longevity of the engine on long runs. May not work, but I like to experiment. Also, do you have polymer on your hull and what kind of prop are you using?