Re: possible to replace prop shaft seals without removing lower unit?
Make you a threaded seal remover from a piece of steel conduit the inside diameter of shaft your working on. Thread it with a pipe threaded and grind thread down to a taper. I had one I used to replace crankshft seal on 15-25 hp motor but loaned it out and never got it back. Here is picture on how it would be made. Below is qoute from tool site:
"This special service tool was developed for the proper removal of the Gear Box Main Oil Seal. At the working end of this tool is a spiral "Barbed Type" thread which secures into the inner part of the oil seal w/o damage to any vehicle part. The grab is one direction. Trying to do this task with any other method is risking a total transmission failure by way of a damaged oil seal housing"
yeah that's a Porche transmission seal removal tool.... I think finding a pipe with the correct inside and outside diameter (ouside large enough to get into the metal part of the seal...) while still being able to get over the shaft on a bigger engine (40hp) might be a challenge. I have a pipe threader... but I'd be worried about getting enough grip on the second seal without the "puller" getting into the bearing behind it due to the taper...
Perhaps I can make one with a short taper... I've got a seal kit on the way so I'll use one of the new seals to get good measurements from and chuck a piece of pipe up in the lathe and see what I can do... I'm thinking if the end of the taper is just shy of metal body inside dia I might get a quick "bite" with the threads... I've not had one of these apart before so I don't know about clearance issues with the bearing... otherwise there'd be a lot less guess work
If the inner bearing boss was large enough you couuld actually use it as fulcrum of sorts and "screw" the seals out if you could get enough of a bite....
