Well outside of winterizing removing the drive is part of the drive service; you do this to check the driveshaft bellows for water and check & lubricate the gimble bearing & u joints. The splines of the input shaft get a coating of OMC triple guard grease and you should also check engine alignment.
On the OMC Cobra you are also going to clean out & grease the pocket in the pivot housing where the shift bell crank moves back & forth, this helps avoid sticky shifting.
So normally I winterize the engine and change the drive gear oil and the next day I pull the drive & check those other points. I store it in the garage and reinstall in the spring.
It’s clearly spelled out in the owners manual and shop manual and Merc & Volvo say the same thing, r&r the drive check/maintain all those points. If not one day it will really cost you——> bellows cracks, lets in water, rusts gimble bearing, & u joints. Then you’ll be asking what’s that howling/grinding noise coming from the stern of the boat? And sometimes it’s so bad the drive gets corroded ON and you’ll be in a world of $$$ hurt then. That’s what can happen if you neglect drive service.....doing it every year I’ve changed the bellows 2x, I change them when small cracks start to appear. The gimble bearing and u joints can last a very long time when maintenance is done regularly. Mine has the gimble replaced in 2005 and the u joints are original. The Cobra bellows can last as long as 10 years if the boat is stored with the drive down.
Keep in mind if you neglect this and the ujoints get rusted and fail if the boat is up on plane the input shaft can start whipping around and damage the transom mount let water in and sink the boat.
So that’s why you remove the drive!
