how tight?

[capped]

Hey all, about 2 weeks ago i installed a turning point rascal on my motor(03 mercury 25hp el) and followed the directions by torqing the nut at 30 ft lbs. After arriving home from the lake today i seen grease running down the skeg from the prop, so i checked the nut and could turn it by hand which i'm sure isnt good. Just wondering how tight these nuts are supposed to be, also my shaft doesnt have a hole to put a pin in, so if i would have lost the prop it would have been trolling motor all the way back. Thanks for any help.

 

[BAYLINER185]

Re: how tight?

Hi

On merc out drives and outboards there is no pin in the shaft.

What there is is a splined spacer with notches in it for locking star ring.

You can really only tighten just so much for the tabs in the star ring to line up with the notches in the spacer ring. Once the nut is as tight as you can make it with the tabs in the ring lined up with the notches in the spacer you bend the tabs down in to the notches. Thats it.

The ring has a hex shape that matches the nut and the prop nut fits into that ring pretty good. The ring in a sence keeps the nut from backing out because the tabs are locked into place in the spacer ring wich cant slide becuase of the splines on the prop shaft. This is a faster easier system then others that use pins through the prop shaft.

Ive never used a tourque wrnce when putting on my prop just my prop wrench. Just tighten that thing as much as you can to where the tabs in the lock ring still line up with the spacer notches. Sometimes you may even have to back the nut off a little to make the tabs line up. It seems weird to be loosening the prop nut but its fine.
Ive never had a prop come extreamly loose that I would loose it an dbe stranded, however I did have one loosen to where I thought I felt some slipage and vibration.....I needed to re tourque my prop nut and I beleive its something that needs to be checked say every 20 or 30 hours if not every time you go out.

Hope that helps