is it nessesary to separate the drive halves to set the preload on the prop shaft bearing on a later model bravo 1 ? also do i need a new load ring or can i use the old one ? alot of work just to replace the prop shaft seals.

You can separate the halves, remove the coupler and use the upper half to preload the drive shaft. If you read it with the top half connected you'll get an incorrect load reading.

on my trs es I drilled an 1/8 hole in the seal 180 deg apart, weled some nuts that fit my slide hammer to some drywall screws, screw them into the seal. slide, whack, and whamo they came right out, do the same with the inner one, made a make shift seal installer with some pipe and installed the new ones, 2 years later and 115 hrs and no leakage.

Use a new ring since you are into it that far. Have heard of them being reused once thou. Yes, need to isolate the 2 halves. The method riverat mentioned works great. Not only preloads the drive shaft as he stated, but it holds the lower unit while you use a 3' cheater bar to get the propshaft carrier tightened. Just for clarification, he is stating to separate the halves, remove the coupler, then bolt them back together. Be aware there are different preload specs depending on if 'new' or 'used' bearings are used for getting the correct rolling preload. Lube those threads!

you must seperate the drive also because you need to get the pinion shaft preload in order to figure out what total preload needs to be!!!!!!!

oh and you should NEVER reuse the load ring if you over tighen the retaing ring you also must replace the load ring so if you havnt done this before buy a couple extra!!!