Sometimes if you're nice your local marine mechanic will lend you his alignment tool. Can't hurt to ask.

Trust me it is alot easier dropping it back in with the drive off. And I too have one of Whoya's tools and it is great. It is a little nicer than the Merc tool.

I have one of Whoya's tools too!! Worked great.

Agreed on pulling the drive off - it is 6 bolts and about 5 mninutes worth of work....

Bottom line is you need to take the drive/drives off when you are going to remove the motor/motors. I've seen guys do it without removing the drive,actually one guy and he had to remove the drive after to align it.

Save yourself alot of trouble and money. Remove the drive first before you remove the motor. The transom assembly has two spring washers that make it very hard to remove the motor with the drive on.

When you put a motor in you drop it down on to the spring washers,thus trying to pull the motor forward will be very hard unless you pry the bell housing up from the transom assembly spring washers.

Im trying to find the alignment tool link on here and can't. Could someone please help me out?
thanx,
Sean