My neighbor came by yesterday and I told him what I would do if it was mine. He mentioned that bolt on thing. I thought that sounds like a good way to go. BTW he says he can get a brand new gear case ready to bolt on and go for $1200. I find that hard to believe. For my 40 E-Tec a new gear case is over $4000
Have you checked Sterndrive Engineering SEI? They make brand-new replacement gearcases for poplar outboards and outdrives. A new gearcase for my Merc V6 is $1195. They have some Johnnyrude gearcases as well.
I haven’t looked on SEI. I’m not really looking to buy a new one since I have everything to fix mine. If one was available for mine at $1200 I would have been on the water last summer LOL The price I saw for my gear case was on Crowley Marine
Update time. I’m getting close to bolting this back up. I thought I had posted this already. One day I spent a half hour trying to get the pinion onto the shaft and had to give up. Couple days later I nailed it in a few minutes. Got the nut on it with some thread locker on it.
