There is one other dis-assembly thing that I was hoping to take care of . . . The saddle/swivel assembly. It would be nice to get that thing to come apart.
My understanding is that the swivel pin/shaft which creates the axis point between the saddle and the swivel/clamp assembly needs to come out. The shaft is shown via the red dotted lines. During the season the salt (salt water) gets up into the lower portion of the shaft and binds it up (big time). The grease fitting (green arrow) is at the top of the shaft housing and as such not much, if any, grease gets down to the lower portion of the housing. I noticed on my 4.5 HP Johnson that there is a grease fitting on both the top and bottom of the shaft housing. I'd like to do the same here, (yellow arrow) but would probably put the fitting on the underside of the housing so as not to interfere with the steering.
Here is the lower end of the pivot shaft that is pressed into the saddle housing. It certainly has 40+ years of rust and corrosion holding it in. I'm not certain if it is a press fit or is fairly loose when first assembled. Right now it seems to be the immovable object. I have been looking for the unstoppable force to get it to budge, but am concerned about breaking the saddle casting.
Here is the shaft from a view of the top portion of the assembly. It looks like it wants to be either pulled out or pressed out. I have been trying to get it to turn or move in any way, but no luck so far. I see that these shafts from similar vintage motors are available as individual parts on eBay, so someone must be able to get these things apart.
I have done the heat thing, the liquid wrench thing, and the lightly impacting thing but no movement so far. I don't have my big press with me, otherwise I would try that.
Any ideas? :noidea:
If I can get this apart, then I can ream the shaft housing a wee bit and install a second grease fitting. If I can't, then I'm not sure I can remedy the salt situation, which gets progressively worse as the season goes on until a point where I cannot steer with the tiller.