help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

I tried to remove my bravo and it will not budge so I took whole boat to my local certified merc guy and he confirmed it will not budge and is stuck in coupler
we are now talking about using a sawsall to cut drive shaft and coupler in half to yank motor and then get drive off any suggestion I really donyt want to have to try and cut it out

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

bummer...

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

Loosen the engine mounts and try raising or lowering the front of the motor slightly while hauling back on the drive. Usually a stuck shaft is due to the coupler being misaligned.

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

thanks for the idea I will give it a try.
The motors were installed last year and are in solid offshore mounts and I was there when my merc guy alighned them and redrilled the mount and they were as close to perfect as you can get
But anything can happen

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

Hopefully the transom assembly's were not glued on with 5200. If they were then this won't work. You could also try loosening the transom assemblies. Air is proably right on this one: something is majorly out of alignment.

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

Can you get grease in the fitting? Maybe enough pressure to pop it loose.

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

well all good advice

my plan is to force as much grease into it as possible
Switch props and run the drives in oposite drections to try help loosen then try to remove by loosening engine mounts and giggling the fromt of motor
If that fails I will try and loosen the coupler and remove motor and get a puller on coupler or have better acces to cut shaft
If I cant loosen coupler from flywheel I will sawzall though coupler and shaft

Hope first options work last two are a pain in the arse

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

I had this problem once and what worked for me was to disconnect the trim rams, put a 2x4 across between the drive and the transom assembly, under the drive. Then I just raised the drive up and let it drop against the 2x4, freed it up on the 3rd drop.

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

I have seen a few boats with Bravos where the gimbal bearing was replaced with the wrong bearing that is thicker and then the drive was pulled in with the 6 bolts to get it all the way in. When it was time to remove the drive, the tapered part of the shaft was so wedged in the bearing, that it did not want to come out. A lot of penetrating oil some impact tool hammering and the shaft finally released from the bearing and came out. Hope this is not your problem. Its a tough job!

Ray @ Raylar

Re: help Bravo drive stuck in coupler
 

Cant you take apart the upper and remove the drive shaft/u-joint from the drive without cutting it? You could spot weld a slide hammer to the shaft after you remove the u joint and beat it out. Then you would just have to replace the drive shaft and your gimbal bearing and whatever else is damaged in there.
I don't know if this would work but someone should know.