I found a 1/2X1-1/2X12" piece of 6061-T6 aluminum in the garage a bit ago. With a little bit of drilling and a whole lot of milling, it will make a nice pair of engine mounts. The fun part now is to get the final mount shape laid out on the block and then start making aluminum chips. I know the machinists in the forum love this kind of stuff. Any volunteers in the crowd
I've designed a set of engine mount mounting rails and started working on the first one. With my little Sherline mill, it tends to take time for any major part work so...............................................
One thing I have managed to get finished is shaving down the heads of the engine mount retaining screws that hold the rubber isolators to the bottom of the boat. When I originally set everything up, the heads stuck up from 1/16 to 1/8". Since I don't want the screws visible after the boat is painted, I broke out the Sherline Minilathe(first time this has happened and I've had the lathe for several years) and clamped an appropriately sized nut in the chuck. I ran the screws down into the nut and VERY SLOWLY cut down the height of the head. The next step will be securing the screws in the recessed holes with epoxy and resealing both inside and out of the bottom so I will be able to install the mounting rails and engine when the rails are completed. For those wondering why I'm making new engine mounting rails, here's a picture of one of them. The engine sits over 1/8" off the table in that shot, way to high for my taste so....................................