When we got the new shaft in place I wanted to adjust the engine first to do a rough alignment. Ericson, in all their infinite engineering wisdom chose a three point motor mount system for the Universal M-25 diesel. Three mounts is not the norm in boat building and almost all engine manufacturers ship engines with four mounts, generally with good reason.


The minute I put a wrench to the front mount in order to adjust it and thus drop the shaft from impinging on the top of the strut, the mount stud simply began to spin in the mount. In the marine environment the studs can get rusty or in this case the threads also get mashed and the stud with this type of design breaks free from the rubber it was molded into. Bad design for boats in my humble opinion. It was clear quite quickly the boat needed at least one new mount but I advised the owner to order three new ones and gave him the part numbers.