I need some help. The trailering hook on my 1969 165 mercruiser outdrive hook fell off while operating the boat. Does anyone know where i can get a replacement?
Well, I googled it and came up with this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/A148-Quicks...Steel-Trailering-Hook-B-86459A2-/111608623775 jim
A trailering hook is something that falls off all the time when you are moving your boat and gets lost......
Well what exactly is this trailing hook? It cannot be as easy as the link that Jim posted. And since Groundedbird (a retired pilot?) posted that it came from a Merc 165 drive unit it must be something that is mounted to the stern that holds the drive unit up when trailering. I have very little experience with stern drives and an just am thinking what it could be with what has been presented so far.
I have seen these hooks before. Something like the support bar that mounts between the trailer and the out drive or lower unit. However, the hook pulls the outdrive up from above instead of pushing up from below. As someone who is less than a fully educated professional on the subject, it seems to be a mechanism designed to keep some of the weight of the out drive off the gimbals and to limit the motion of the aforementioned out drive to a minimum.
Is this what your looking for? http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-IN-PACKAGE-MERCRUISER-TRAILERING-HOOK-/181590145196
This is what I use. You can cut them down to your trailing specs to relieve stress on the exhaust bellows (mine are 2/3rds from stock length). Newer outdrives do not have the eyelet that the "hook" system would work with so they went to a ram shim which should work with your application (you may want to take a caliper to your ram shafts to make sure but I think they would work with the new and older rams). You can still leave them at the launch if you forget to put them in the vehicle with everything else (transom tie down, etc.) sbut they are readily available. http://www.ebay.com/itm/SET-OF-MERC...R-TRIM-RAM-SUPPORTS-ALPHA-BRAVO-/280895412297 Overtons has them as well.
