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.

Last time i did it your way ,,i broke a gimbalring on a Bravo.
NO THANKS.
But thats me.:(

I did not post knock the chit of it which most likely you did. You broke your ring placing the wood on the top of the outdrive and in between the gimbals. I'm sure you pounded the hiss out of it. If your drive is that hard to get off then their could be a problem with rust or the alingment is off inwhich if you are doing the maintenance to your boat this should be checked at least once a year or 100hrs which ever comes first so you can catch problems before they become bigger problems. Plus you are in salt water world everything breaks when trying to get anything off.

Sounds like solid theory. After hearing from Daredevil, maybe slight increments up and down so as not to stress the gimball ring.
Maybe I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Just don't go to town with it, everything has its limits plus not to pat myself on the back here but honestly we have done in the thousands of fresh water outdrives that way because not to many just slide off unless they are brand new in which most are a cake walk. Like I said if you have a problem with alignment, a bellows that has leaked water in to that area so now its rusted up, or even a spun coupler can make it very very hard to pull an outdrive off. good luck

Boats, if I had a spun bearing or alignment issue, would I have shaving on the drain plug magnet? There was very little metal (powder) on the magnet... I was happily surprised.

drive oil has nothing to do with the Gimbal bearing. Your driveshaft- u-joint assembly goes right thru it ( gimbal bearing) then splines into the engine coupler. has nothing to do with the internals of your outdrive itself. the gimbal bearing can get rusted up along with the driveshaft-u-joint assembly making it very hard sometimes to pull the outdrive, (how they get rusted is another story). A spun engine coupler kind of wraps itself and or melts itself around the the splines of the u-joint drive shaft remember this shaft splines itself into that engine coupler. to do an engine alignment you would need the alignment tool 1st of all. You stab the tool thru the gimbal bearing and into the engine coupler all the way and pull it out with very little resistance going in and pulling out. if this can not be done then you have to raise or lower your motor mounts to get the recommended alignment. Hope this makes sense.

It makes sense. Now I'm getting worried-lol. I'll check it out my next day off. Thanks I appreciate the info, I'll post with results.

I re posted after you to try to make some more sense. also no offense but i see this alot if you do not know what you doing sometimes its a lot less money to a have a recommended boat shop work on your boat. I see it all time, people screwing up their own stuff try to fix something or like something simple as to - I hope you know you fill your outdrive with gear oil from the bottom up leaving the vent plug out and the res.cap off when oil comes out the vent plug put drain plug and new o-ring gasket in then fill up res.. the reason I wonder how many people do not know the answer on this board. Air pockets will happen if you do not fill from the bottom up. This will bring an incorrect oil level if you do not fill from the bottom up and leave vent plug out until oil comes out of it. OMC Cobra's are done from the middle plug.

When this happened to me I had to sawzall the coupler and shaft it's a real ***** funny thing was after getting drve off pulled motor put on new coupler and pit motor back in had offshore mounts and aliggnment tool agent right in still don't know why would not come off
I had also taken to my merc shop and he could not get it off either

A suggestion from a guy later was to connect trim cylinders back up and put 4 x4 in drive and trim all the way down to try and pop off wish I had that advice before sawzall

No offense taken, the thought crossed my mind that I should have just taken it to the shop. I have done this once before and had no problem... thought it was actually easy. I didn't forsee this type of prob. I know to fill from the bottom up. Thanks for the info.

Alright guys, I promised an update. Got the drive off today with the help of a friend. Oddly enough, everything looked good with the U-joint, splines, etc. No rust or twisting of shaft/coupler. We saw some dried grease on the shaft that was hardened (almost like a fourth O-ring). We're thinking that's what held the drive from coming off easily. However, we did chink up the plastic fitting on the gear lube fitting. Now my question is, can that fitting be replaced without taking off the bell housing? The cable moves freely fore and aft but the plastic "cap" is severely cracked.

Update- I got the drive back on. It was hard to get back on as well ( see earlier post). A friend and I ended up borrowing a make-shift alignment tool. Turns out the gimbal bearing was out of alignment enough to prohibit the shaft from inserting. We put the tool in, centered it, and woolah (ics) the drive went on fairly easily.