I need help
 

I'm servicing my Bravo drives today and I can't get the drive seperated from the flywheel housing. I'm trying to get to the spline/coupler so I can grease them. I disconnected the hydraulic steering, rams, speedometer cable, and the six bolts but the upper will not budge. I don't really see any good place to pry and I don't want to damage the housing or paint. Any suggestions/tricks?

Thanks.

rocking the drive up and down usually frees up a stubborn drive. With everything loose and the trim rams off grab the prop shaft and bounce the drive up and down a bit and see if that loosens it up. Leave the center nuts (of the six) on a few threads to catch it if it pops away hard.

Do you have offshore or the stud type motor mounts?

you can put a piece of wood like a chunk of 4 x 4 or even 2 x 4 under the drive skeg. When you are rocking it up and down let it fall on the wood. Just leave one or two nuts on real loose so the outdrive doesn't fall off on you when it breaks loose

I don't know, probably offshore motor mounts. I have a 353 Fastech with 500 EFI's and Bravo XZ drives.

I already tried rocking up and down. Also put some straps thru the steering holes and jerked and pulled without any luck. It seems the port side of the drive is what is stuck (calcium deposits?) but neither side is budging.

Well I got the upper sepperated from the flywheel housing about 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch by prying with screwdrivers. I can't get it to move anymore as the gap is too large(between upper and flywheel housing) to pry with screwdrivers now. I'm hanging it up for the night but plan on using some wood wedges and a hammer in the morning. If anyone has experience with this dilema or knows of a problem that would cause this, please chime in. I've removed a Bravo off my old boat and had no issues. Gotta get a beer and regroup.

Turn the motor over 180 degrees so the coupler spline alignment takes a new position, thats what worked putting mine on two weeks ago when I has the same problem on the flip side.

Good to know, I'll give it a try. My only reluctance is I drained all the gear lube. Do I have to rebolt the upper if I just bump the starter?

Next time place a 2 x 4 wood ( could wrap a towel around the 2 x 4) on top of your outdrive in between the drive itself and Gimbals then move outdrive up and down against the wood. This will seperate it. You will not mark the outdrive up either or you can place the wood under the horn and in between the outdrive and move outdrive up and down against the wood (hitting the wood). All boatshops do it that way with drives that are hard to get off. Prying with screw drivers should not be done. Most likely you could have rusted up drive shaft u-joint assembly and rusted up gimbal bearing if this is the case the outdrives are always harder to get off. If your alignment is way off then you will have to turn motor over slightly and then you have to find out why your alignment is off. Could mean a problem or re-adjust motor mounts.