I was cruising along at about 4000K RPMs minding my own business when bad things happened. I am not sure what happened first - gimbal bearing, uppers, u-joint, coupler, etc. After shutting down, there was that great smell of burning rubber. But the end result is that the lower seems to spin fine in neutral but when in gear there is a huge vibration. When you lay on top of the motor and look down at the little bit of the coupler and driveshaft that you can see, it wobbles when you bump the starter.

I attempted to remove the drive but it will only release about 1/2" and then stops dead. I have removed drives before and never had this happen.

So what do you think happened? More importantly, how can I get the drive off to see what happened?

Thanks.

burning rubber sounds like engine coupler,when i blew mine it was hard to pull outdrive because of the alum. coupler splines were on my steel drive shaft splines i changed mine without pulling the engine in about 30min but it was a pain in the you know what

pull drive and then shine a flash light up gimbal if coupler is smooth then you know where the problem is sometimes splines are good but the rubber part slips that is the burning smell either way you are replacing that coupler

I attempted to remove the drive but it will only release about 1/2" and then stops dead. It seems that something inside is stopping it from coming out. I have removed drives before and never had this much difficulty. What could it be?

Any tricks that would help to get it off?

i would just about guarantee it is the coupler. If you can verify this by looking over the rear of the engine and seeing debris from the rubber, or aluminum then ou must pry the drive off one way or another. You can try bumping the motor over to free up the input shaft then try to pull the drive again. hope this helps, but it will probably be a pain in the ass. Firehawkcat, how did you change a coupler without pulling the engine?

Is this a new boat or new drive, o rings being new could make it nice and tight maybe try greasing gimbal bearing thru the grease sert

my engine is not stock alot of extra stuff is not on there. headers actually helped this time. climbed in engine compartment rotated engine by hand (bolts were at 9 oclock remove 1 and rotate engine again to 9 oclock) I was on starboard side . My cat has a pretty deep bilge, dropped old coupler down bilge and pulled out by the front pullys going back in was a little tougher took about an hour maybe i just got lucky

make sure you get a engine alinement tool got mine off ebay seller is a member here as well

So I bumped the starter a few times until I was able to slide the drive off. Here's the damage - I am missing a few inches off the shaft that used to mate with the coupler, coupler toasted, one u-joint is shot and, best of all, upper drive is seized.

So, do I just replace the drive, coupler, gimbal bearing with new and get back boating?

Should I upgrade to something else?

Where in South Jersey can I find someone who is good to rebuild my XR paperweight? Or can I ship it to someone on here? How much would that run?

Your help is appreciated. Thanks.

Man baja525efi you sure tore the hell out of it, any idea what caused the damage?