Mine did the same exact thing. I sent you a pm. I had to pull my motor and tranny together then the drive slipped right off. No corrosion no rust, something was binding up still haven't figured out what the problem was.

Work it in and out as much as possible. Push it in the drive and drop it on wood. Put smaller piece wood at the bottom studs for more leverage and repeat process. It took me about 2 hours to get mine off.

Oreo is right same thing happened to a buddy of mine,I forget how he got his Trs off but I will see him this weekend and let you know.

A pure stab in the dark here, but have you loostened your two main tailstock bolts? In the past I've had to shim between the tailstock and inner transom plate portion of where the tailstock sits in order to get perfect allignment. If you dont have perfect allignment and the tailstock bolts are torqued down, that could put the input shaft on a major bind. Again, just a shot in the dark.

Where exactly around Deleware do you live?

you might want to check your motor mounts for sagging if it is grossly out of line it could be in a bind. also if it is a trs trans there is a spring on end of yoke ive seen them get hung up!!

Rust on the shaft. If it were siezed I wouldn't think it woud come out at all.

Here's a diagram of what your working with inside there.
http://www.perfprotech.com/mercruise...9/39?model=882

The shaft is supported entirely with in the tail stock by the rear bearing #14 and front bearing #13, and the splines engage in the coupler #6. With this in mind I couldn't see any way the shaft could be put in a bind due to the tailstock motor mounts. Then as the shaft comes out of the trans tailstock you have 2 sets of u-joints to accomadate any angle the drive may encounter, left-right-up-down.

Two sets of U joints do not change one centerline. The drive bolts to the gimble and the gimble is ultimately attached to the transom. The motor/trans/tailstock are not. I can tell you from experience that if the engine/trans/tailstock are not perfectly alligned with the gimble, then a TRS allignment tool will show it.

Not saying this is the problem for the original poster. But it was on both sides of my Cigarette.

Maybe you could pull the rear cover from drive, remove pinion nut & pull drive leaving the drive shaft. maybe???? just a thought, then remove the shaft.

No doubt that if the engine/trans isn't aligned with the bell housing it's going to show it with the tool, that's it's purpose. I was merely stateing beings the shaft is suported on both ends within the tailstock there's no way to put it in a bind and the u-joints would keep it from binding if alignment was off some let alone needing to be PERFECTLY ALIGNED or you could have MAJOR BINDING. As far as the bolts being torqued or loosened I can't see it making any difference to a 800lb. engine and tranny sitting there on it's mounts.

I'm just north of Delaware, same road that Buckeye Valley School sits on.

I haven't gotten totally agressive with this quite yet, just the prying and droping on a piece of wood wedge in between the gimbal housing and drive. I haven't used the rams or a come along so as far as I know I may not be persistant enough with it. This weekend will be my last chance, if I can't get it off then it's going to someone else, I don't have the knowledge, resources, or time to f with the tranny and motor.