I've started to venture down the path of 'altering' a twin motor 'vector thrust' boat -cheapie bought on e-bay. I've ripped out and cleaned up everything inside the plastic hull. I've taken out the two original propshafts and put a new one in the centre. I lined the new propshaft up with the original shafts, i.e., I drew a line between the two original shaft holes and set the new hole in the middle of the rear of the boat at the same level. I hope that was the right thing to do.

My question is, does it matter what angle I have the propshaft at, I know that will impact the angle of the propellor in the water. This is a surface drive set-up and as I said I lined the propshaft up with the original shafts, just not sure what angle to put the shaft at. Hope this question makes sense.

Cheers
Brad

Brad,
The general idea is to make the 'angle' as shallow as possible. That will depend on a lot of things, so the drive shaft being parallel to the water surface isn't always possible. 'Close' does count, though. The only 'angles' that really don't work well are those close to 90 degrees with the surface of the water, and those that 'point' up to the surface. Anything in between will work, sort of...
- 'Doc

[It's early! Not enough coffee yet. Sorry 'bout that last part.]

That makes sense to me. I was worried I had to be really pedantic about it.

Cheers
Brad

Hi Brad,

Try to get the propshaft as parallel to the keel line as possible.
If the boat sits on its keel on a flat surface, there should be 2-3mm of air between the prophub and the table.
Distance between the transom and propnut: generally 10 - 12 % of the hull length

Depending on how much power youre going to install, the less angle, the better.

Short of installing a flexshaft, or wire drive, this means a (very) long solid shaft to get the motor as far forward as possible without compromizing the CoG (28% from the transom).

Regards, Jan.

Again - thanks - I think I will need to look at the propshaft I'm using, I salvaged it from another cheapie boat, so it might turn out to be too short. I'm waiting on the new motor I ordered to arrive before I can fully judge how it will all sit. I'm sure I'll have more questions once all the bits and pieces arrive.

Thanks for the help.

Cheers
Brad