Thanks for the inquiry Bob. Tom, hopefully the rebuilt knee will work better than the original equipment.

To make a long story longer, here’s what happened to the AF motors. I was getting a screeching sound from the boat that led me to believe that a bearing was bad. It was the left side since the back pressure from the rudder always reduced that side’s RPM and it was easy to tell that the left side was the culprit. I sent both motors off to AF to get the rear and front bearings replaced just to keep everything in balance. When I got them back, the brush screws in one of them were stripped beyond use but the threads in the brush holders were still pristine. Someone there must have picked up a crappy set of screws from somewhere and replaced the ones that I was using. It took a while to get the replacement screws and I reinstalled the motors. I got both motors all set up with the couplers and dog bones and started to apply some battery power to each one. I could not believe what I was seeing. One of them was turning in the opposite direction! It had been reassembled wrong. Back to AF it went for another two week round trip. I got it back and finally had everything right. I took the Corvette out to the lake and low and behold the same noise was coming from the left side. It was not the bearings. It had to be the oillite bushings in the stuffing box or the strut. I tried to remove the left shaft but it would not move rearward. It rotated all right but not backward. I did get it out eventually and saw that the rear bushing in the strut had made some deep gouges in the prop shaft. The right one was not bad. I’m going to try to replace the strut and get a good alignment with the stuffing box so that I won’t have to dig out the box. I already did damage the plywood strut mount. I’m not too sure how this is going to work out.

On a lighter note, my wife and I had a great time on the aircraft carrier Midway in San Diego. They really let you see a great deal of the ship. If you are nearby be sure to take it in. That picture of the two of us was taken in the bridge. What a great view the captain had of the whole thing. Dan.