Hi Folks,
Since posting the note on the Tides red hose (dripless shaft seal) maintenance issue I have had conversations with several owners and realized that maybe a good thing has turned into a not so good thing!
As you know PDW used a "Drive saver" unit between the transmission coupling and the shaft coupling. This is a good thing, because it reduces vibration caused by engine out of alignment. It is also a bad thing because it allows "out of alignment" issues to go unnoticed. It is very possible that the failure of the Tides hoses were caused by engines that were out of alignment. ( but never noticed and were still causing a lot of vibration that caused the the hose failures) So.........One of the highly recommended items on your annual maintenance list should be to check engine alignment as well as checking for wear on the Tides hose. Checking alignment is not easy as you must first remove the "Drive savers" then check for coupling to coupling alignment. This is something that is called for in the owners manual but most people tend to forget it as it is time consuming/costly to do.
Safe cruising!