if I recall, I also once had to remove cap on drive, loosen the shaft from interior of drive( can't remember how exactly) and took the drive off. shaft was still hooked to the boat, and I was able to slide it inside with tranny moving forward... but that's many years ago... can't remember everything...

You would take the rear cover off and remove the nut off the end of the input shaft and pull the drive off. Then you would probably have to seperate engine and trans and pull engine due to limited space. Then move trans forward about 3 feet in order to get it out with the shaft stuck in it. This would only be concidered as a last resort. Drive must come off and problem be corrected at this point in time. May end up pulling engine and trans anyway if there's a problem with the trans tailstock bearings.

Oh how I love boating. No such thing as easy on this boat.

Not to get the cart in front of the horse but how hard is putting it back on contemplating everything slides back in easy. I heard since the shaft is shorter you have to tape it up so that it will slide in??

Pull the drive with the above method, it's easy. Then hook a slide hammer to the remaining driveshaft and pull it out. It probably just has a rusted shaft. Clean it up with some WD40 and you will be good to go. Shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes.

Well the come along had no affect, didn't budge a bit, heard a couple creeks but nothing. Took the 2X2 wood and put it back under the bell housing then put a big yellow handle screw drive at the bottom between the bell housing and the drive and raised it about 3-4 inches and dropped it 3-4 times and it finally broke free. I did spray some liquid wrench in there earlier, don't know if that did anything, but good thing I still had the bolts on or else it probably would have falling on my feet. Hooked up a engine hoist and pulled it off, the port came off like butter. Didn't see any rust which was odd, nor any binds in the splines. Took some pics, not the best lighting.

Thanks for all the help, I knew I just wasn't persistant enough with them. The only thing left is to build some temp. stands and rent a soda blaster, throw up a tent, blast, prime, paint, and hook back up. Oh and touch up the bell housings and k planes.

Congradulations!! While the drives are off reach in and spin the tailstock bearings to see that they feel alright. Also don't forget to grease the u-joints! Once a year or 100 hours which ever occures first.

If you're going to soda blast you could have just left the drives on the boat and masked the transom and covered the rest of the boat.

Yeah, but the boat is being stored elsewhere for the winter, plus the drives needed to come off so I could inspect. Oddly enough the drive that came off last year has cracks in the drive bellow so that will need replaced, the one I had trouble with looks new???

You live close to Delaware?

Sounds like your Starb. motor is out of alignment. We've seen a few like this, the easiest way to remove the drive is to loosen the two vertical engine mount bolts and lift the back of the motor until the drive slides off. Never takes much, just enough to take the load of the rear mounts. Now that the drive's off you will need to re-align the motor or you will never get the drive back on.

Over years of use the fabric bushings wear away and the shims and springs begin to wear into the transom unit. This in turn allows the motor to sag very slightly and translates into a few radians which is a lot of movement back there. Still an easy fix but you'll need to address it never the less.

This was EXACTLY the point that I was tying to get across earlier. Both of mine were stuck on because of that.