Stuck Driveshaft

Help me Brothers for i am in need!!

I have been struggling for over a week now trying to get the Lower Unit off my Mercury 60 HP 2 stroke "1989". It would appear that it has had little to no maintenance carried out on it. I have taken all the required bolts / nuts ets off and the lower unit dropped fine (to a point ), but no matter what i do it will not come off.

I think that the previous owner has not put any grease on the Drive Shaft spine and i am almost sure it is either fused on now or rusted together?

Any ideas suggestions. I have hammered, winched, pulled and pretty much done everything i can think off?

One crazy idea is to strip the entire engine down to try and gain access to the drive shaft, can someone tell me if this is even possible, my thinking being that if i can strip the engine down to gain access to it then i could hit the drive shaft from the top as apposed to pulling (if that makes sense)

You help would be gratefully received

Tarwddu

P.s. long time reader firsttime poster

Re: Stuck Driveshaft

One thing you can try is tip the engine upside down and keep shooting PB Blaster down to where the driveshaft meets the crankshaft. Keep working it (Lower unit) in and out letting the PB penetrate the splines. It may take some time but it should come loose sonner or later. I,m not so sure you can remove the crankshaft without removing the exhaust base plate that has two studs that run through the intake. The powerhead must be removed to get this off and that means seperating the driveshaft from the crank anyway. Make sure you put something under the engine to break the fall when the drive shaft lets go of the crank I wouldn,t recommend lifting the engine more than a few inches from the ground when doing this.

Re: Stuck Driveshaft

Here is a trick I use on Mercruisers that will work if its still cooling( I use bilge pump to supply water on Mercruisers). Take a old prop and cut one ear off, install it on motor, take to lake and back in water and start. Put in gear and bring up to about half throttle and usually vibration will shake it off, keep hand on kill lanyard or key to cut off when it drops as rpm will jump!!!!