Changing Drive Coupler
 

Switching to a Bmax drive and I'm going to change the drive coupler while doing it.
How many of you guys have changed it without pulling the motor totally out?
I have room to move the motor foward about 3" or lean it maybe enough to get all the bolts out.
I know if you guys have done it you will have some great shortcuts I can follow.
Just hoping to not have to unhook everything.
I also have full hydraulic steering so there is no steering cylinder in the way on top of the back of the engine. 575Sci motor.
Installing the newer long nose style coupling also.
Thank you in advance for your help!

The coupler is inside the bell housing, which is bolted to your transom assembly. So you are going to have to support/lift the motor to pull the bell housing. That most likely means you are going to have to remove most everything anyway. Might as well just lift it out and do it the easy way instead of trying to squeeze in and do it in the boat.

Its worth atry. I have done it a few times without removing motor. Tight squeeze to get the belhousing back in over the long snout coupler.

I have the offshore mounts so I think I can just lift it and turn it a little to get to the back. I have plenty of room on the sides. If I take the blower off I'll have a lot of room in the front to move it forward but would rather not go that route.
How long did it take you to do yours?

My boat has twins stuffed/crammed/squeezed in there so I had to pull the motor. I agree that the bellhousing removal and re-install will make it difficult in the boat. If it's a single engine and you can just spin the motor 90 degrees to do the work then you wouldn't have to pull it out of the boat but you'd still have to disconnect everything so I would pull it anyway to do the work in my shop instead of a cramped bilge.

It's not worth it. What's it going to take to unhook everything, another 20 minutes? You're going to bang yourself up, drop things in the bilge and not be sure what goes where. You'll waste more time doing it that way than it takes to disconnect the few hoses and wires believe me. I've tried it both ways and I'll always pull the engine for these type of repairs now.

Done it in a 28' Donzi a few yrs ago. Still had to unhook everything in order to lift it up and position the motor to swap the coupler. A few minutes to lift the motor higher and outta the boat was all that was needed, but in my case I had the coupler swapped and lowered motor back down in those few minutes.

I have done it both ways but if you lift it out it makes it easier to wash/detail the bilge.