propellar shaft seals

hi, im new to this.. well heres the issue. i have a 2003 mercruy 25 hp bigfoot fourstroke.. i bought it with no skeg (i realized it was torn off when the guy delivered the boat to me.. gotta learn somehow), hit some bedrock in the ct river. not only did i bang up the prop when i got home i realized i bent the shaft. thank god i work in a aerospace machine shop, cause one of the heat treat corrections guys bent it back to within .0005" runout. so all i had to get was a prop and some seals. now the problem is i can't get the seals out of the bearing carrier.. are they pressed in? the guy at the boat shop says all i gotta do is pry them out.. any ideas?

Re: propellar shaft seals

I'm assuming the bearing carrier is out? You can drive the seals out from the other side of the carrier.

You'll need to make some kind of tool with an angled tip so it'll reach over to the side and latch onto the backside of the seal so you can drive it out.

Should be no problem for an aerospace shop! An old bent screwdriver makes a good tool, BTW. Just use caution not to gouge the bearing carrier when you drive out the seals.

Use a suitable driving tool to reinstall the new seals. Be sure to note the orientation of the old seals before you drive them out; reinstall the new seals in the same manner............ed

p.s. if you don't have the carrier out, I've got an idea for a special seal pulling tool which your shop could easily fabricate.