cutting a drive shaft ??

Hay fellas, got a question for yall. I recently acquired a 1990 6 hp #E6SLESR sail boat motor and of course its a long shaft. My thoughts were to get a short shaft LU and put it on a jon boat. Engine is in good shape, comp is 115 top and 110 lower. I was thinking I could take the drive shaft and shift shaft to a machine shop and get them cut down and rewelded. The drive shafts were only made for 89 & 90's parts numbers do not inter change.

Most of the time the main shaft will come with the LU unless you are just talking about getting the housing. I suppose it is possible but the shaft would have to be re-splined. May be cheaper and easier to locate a complete short shaft lower unit. You also have to have a short mid section.

.. and shorter water tubes et al.

I wouldn't do it ... but I'd certainly build up the transom higher and use the LS motor on that SS hull!

make a transom riser. much cheaper and no disassmbly required.

I changed my 9.9 long shaft to a short but mine had the 5"spacer in the middle ..took it off cut my water tube off take water pump housing off and shaft slid out put short shaft in new impeller good to go but I had a blown up ss

Charger....The driveshaft can be cut and re-welded. The cut and weld process can be made stronger and straight by drilling a pilot into one of the driveshaft parts and cutting a step into the other half which will then be pressed into the drilled portion. Chamfers should be cut into the halves and the welding and grinding done at that point.
Cutting and re-splining can be done as well but more expensive.
Shift shaft can be cut and the lower unit end can be machined as necessary.
Or.....Ebay....or....www.aomci.org
Bet someone over at aomci will have one to sell the parts off of if Ebay doesn't have anything.

That was what I was thinking Pappy, where I used to work we had an awesome machine shop with some of the best machinist I've ever seen. All I would have to do was drop it off tell 'em to shorten it by 5'', and say ,Yeah its a " Government Job" and there's a 12 pack in your future. :LOL2: I've been all over E-bay to try to locate to correct LU also crossed referenced part numbers but it seems that that drive shaft and LU for a standard transom was only made for 89 and 90 yr models, which makes it scarce. I'll try over at the aomci. The darn thing has a plug on the front to charge a battery, I wanna say 6 or 8 amp out put.
I know the shift shaft and the pick up tube for the water pump I can do myself,my main concern was the drive shaft being true and ballanced. I would really like to find a complete LU

I don't want to build up the transom simply because I want to be able to put it on different boats. AND I might sell it later on, wife just found out about the 9.9 I picked up that I didn't tell her about. [-X

Found out about the 9.9? Hmmm...you're not doing it right!
When I was married one of my hobbies was flying RC aircraft. At first, I was crashing one every weekend (to the point the garbage man was laughing his *** off) but got better and better. During the early phases it was easy for her to tell what I had in "inventory" by what was in the garbage can and what was in the spare bedroom (hangar). I bought more planes and got it to the point that there was no way she could walk into that room and tell what was there and what wasn't. If she would ask "Is that a new plane?" I would just tell her Hell no have had that one for a long time and just decided to dig it out and fly it. Get the idea??

I hear ya Pappy LMAO! guess I need to get MORE Rudes and hide the good stuff in it . Keep them hidden in plain sight. Well pulled the shaft n gonna drop it off at the machine shop where I've gotten some heads milled before. Where I used to work we out sourced some jobs to them and they did outstanding work. I'll post up some before and after pics.

Now I just gotta figure out what to do with this 9.25 X 6.50 micky mouse eared prop

Well I went ahead and got the shaft re-splined instead of cutting and welding.


The shift shaft I cut down with a angle grinder and a cut off wheel.




Cut the water tube with a small pipe cutter



And 20 in to 15 in conversion complete !! :LOL2:

Charger25 said:

Well I went ahead and got the shaft re-splined instead of cutting and welding ...

Click to expand...

Looks GREAT! Sounds like you had a dayum good machinist doing that work! Made me think back to the time when I was a Supervisor at a machining center, when a machinist came up and he said we needed a 'Mgt decision'. Said he was making a gear 32" in diameter and at the end said "He only had room for 2 small teeth or 1 big one ..." :shock:

Darn involute angle ...