Last year I replaced the seals on the pistons of the unit. It had been abused from an early age as it had been painted with copper based antifouling. The body of the unit was pretty corroded; but I thought it might last a bit longer - I was wrong.
Having got a pre-loved unit, today I set about changing it out.
Removed the upper cylinder pin and put a support under the skeg to keep the motor out of the way.
Loosened the left stern bracket and removed the hex bolt running through the lower cylinder collar(lcc). This is when I discovered that the lcc protruded 14mm from the power trim tilt assembly. With a lot of effort managed to force the brackets apart enough and drop the old trim tilt assembly out.
Now to remove the lcc. After beating on it for time and realizing that it wasn't budging at all, went to the store to get as new one - line of least resistance. Not in stock, in fact they told me they had never sold one, ever.
Back to the marina, after a lot more beating I borrowed a cutting disc and set to work. Made a careful cut down to the the plastic bushings and set out beating it, sure it would drift out. Nothing. A second and third parallel cut followed and I started removing chunks of alloy from the corroded trim tilt assembly which still stuck onto the lcc like sh1t to a wet blanket.
Finally when more that half the circumference of the lcc was exposed I managed to release it. The thing had been held by the dried up crud of old grease. It would never have come out any other way.
Tomorrow, clean up and assembly......
Having got a pre-loved unit, today I set about changing it out.
Removed the upper cylinder pin and put a support under the skeg to keep the motor out of the way.
Loosened the left stern bracket and removed the hex bolt running through the lower cylinder collar(lcc). This is when I discovered that the lcc protruded 14mm from the power trim tilt assembly. With a lot of effort managed to force the brackets apart enough and drop the old trim tilt assembly out.
Now to remove the lcc. After beating on it for time and realizing that it wasn't budging at all, went to the store to get as new one - line of least resistance. Not in stock, in fact they told me they had never sold one, ever.
Back to the marina, after a lot more beating I borrowed a cutting disc and set to work. Made a careful cut down to the the plastic bushings and set out beating it, sure it would drift out. Nothing. A second and third parallel cut followed and I started removing chunks of alloy from the corroded trim tilt assembly which still stuck onto the lcc like sh1t to a wet blanket.
Finally when more that half the circumference of the lcc was exposed I managed to release it. The thing had been held by the dried up crud of old grease. It would never have come out any other way.
Tomorrow, clean up and assembly......