Motor mounts and jackplate "?"

[River Rat]

After hearing about a friend with a broken bolt on his boat and remembering the earlier discussion hear about mounts, I inspected mine and hope I'm not in trouble and can describe this accurately.  The "sliding" plate on my jackplate is tilted almost 1/4 inch - meaning the left/port side is 1/4 inch lower than the right/driver side but it doesn't look like it actually moved (no big visible "new" shiny spots or things like that).  I called my marina and they said it's "no big deal" to loosen and then straighten out the motor, then double chk all my bolts with a torque wrench.  Sitting in my driveway having never done this... it's a bid deal to me!  That's why I'm putting my naivety out there, seems like a few guys here can help tell me what's going on and how to do this.

Thx,
Scott

I forgot to mention: I don't feel comfortable with my rig this way, running all the way to Pelee Is to battle the not-so-elusive monster sheepehead!  Seems like that's all I catch there...

[River Rat]

Problem solved.

[psuderrick]

It would be a good idea to check the threads of the bolts and threading in the nuts, after time these will stretch and cause them to become weak and eventually break/fallout. Which would not be good when under the stresses the motor/jackplate goes through of being on bigger waters.
To check this, if you put a wrench on the bolt, then a socket on the nut and give a push/pull and it turns more than a 1/2 of a rotation, they may be stretched out and need replaced. Just something to look into and save some grief/money down the road.