ctuck0659

I really appreciate all the input and suggestions. After taking another hard look at it, my working theory now is that the end tips of the splines in the coupler are slightly buggered up and not letting the shaft splines slide past. When the Gimbal Ring broke and the shaft slipped out, I heard a grating noise as I powered down. I think the drive shaft end was just making contact with the end of the coupler hole and grating on the splines. Its hard to tell looking down the drive boot through the bearing hole with a light, but the ends of the coupler splines look a little flattened. The shaft itself barely looks a little scuffed, but who knows, it may be a harder steel then the coupler. I'm gonna try removing the rear bearing and working between the coupler splines with trianglular rat file and see if that does the trick-

Clustergear

Yes the file will work done it many times Put spline gease on shaft too

ctuck0659

Just thought I'd post the end of the story in case it helps anyone else in the future: what finally solved my problem was filing between the splines on the coupler and a little bit on the shaft w/ a triangular file- they got rubbed at the very end when the shaft slipped out of the tranny. We hoisted the drive from above and wiggled it in 'til we could feel contact w/ the splines while turning the prop shaft. Then we had to put a block of wood across the drive directly behind the shaft and whack it "gently" with a 5 lb. mallet. It took 2-3 whacks to move the drive in far enough to get the nuts started. After so many wasted hours trying to solve this problem I'm convinced that all the "tricks" like a screwdriver on the U-joint, string around the shaft, tape around the shaft etc. are completely defeated by the rear bearing which is permanently aligned with the coupler by the tailstock. I think when the parts are new they slid together easily but what most of us are dealing with is wear to the splines on the shaft and coupler.

tms1155

If you had to "pull" the drive in with the nuts your really going to have some fun the next time it needs to come off.

ctuck0659

I hear what you're saying but it took very little effort on the nuts to move the drive in- If we had to, we probably could have pushed the drive in by hand, but its such a clumsy beast to get any force behind. I think the sides of the splines make just enough contact to make it difficult-