Hurricane Laura is gone and I was out of town for 3 days, now back to the fun. Over the weekend my brother and I finished the A frame and attached a chain hoist to it (Harbor Freight #69338) (pics 1,2,3) and the engine finally was removed without any further problems. I want to go back briefly to the rear motor mounts, the real problem as far as the motor was concerned. I came up with the idea to drill a hole in the big washer and the spacer underneath in an angle towards the bolt (pic 4) and then squirted PB blaster into the holes and figured that the solvent would work its way down the bolt and free up the frozen motor mount. Well, I still think it was a good idea and normally it probably would have worked, but PB blaster failed to do what I thought it would, free up the shaft, even though I put solvent in it twice a day for more than a week. After 2 weeks I figured either the bolt head will snap like it did with the other bolt or PB blaster did its job and the bolt will come out. To my surprise neither happened, but the bolt started to turn without snapping the head, but did not seem to come lose or out. That worried and confused me and I thought that I had stripped the nut on the bottom or worse yet stripped or cracked the transom frame which holds the nut. So I decided to take my 4 1/2" angle grinder and grind the head off. After I did that it became clear what had happened. The rubber mount actually had separated from its metal parts and the transom frame or nut are just fine. If PB blaster did anything it may have weakened or softened the rubber of the mount and it just ripped loose instead of snapping the head. Thank God for that. Now I had to deal with the other bolt, which had no head but all its rubber. Again I got a special tool from Harbor Freight (pic 5) and it took less than a minute to turn that rubber into dust. Great tool for that purpose (Harbor Freight #38425). Now I can concentrate on the OD in the next couple of days and get that one out too....hopefully. ---- Stay tuned!
