Pulling shafts on v-drives

[bogus]

I need to pull the shafts on my 95 330DA with Hurth V-Drives. The coupler in the engine compartment has a nut on the end of the shaft, as well as the four bolts holding the coupler together. I am assuming that the shaft is tapered and keyed on the outer half of the coupler. I have the nut off the end of the shaft, and the four bolts out of the coupler. How can I break the outer half of the coupler from the shaft? There is very little room between the end of the shaft and the front of the engine compartment. Is there a special puller to get that half of the coupler free, or are there any "tricks" that you guys have used? Also, does anything need to be done with the stuffing box before pulling the shafts?

 

[Happy Hour IV]

I copied this from another forum, hope the author does not mind.

Some tricks.

1. when pulling off a prop loosen the nut, but leave it on the shaft. This is a keyed taper shaft, so the prop is essentially squeezing on that taper. If you can, place a block of wood against the hub of the prop and give it a wang with a rubber mallet. It will hopefully pop.

2. remove prop set aside, loosen packing nut and remove, you'll want to repack that, if you wish to have a dripless packing nut (OJ or PSS) this is the time to purchase it as well.

3. Coupling unbolted, you will see inside the coupling there is a nut, this must be unscrewed which can be tricky, its fairly easy to build a tool to help consisting of a peice of bar with holes drilled in it spaced to pick up the spacing of the shaft coupler, bolt the coupler to this tool. put penetrant on shaft nut, allow to soak (this step out of order I guess) then remove that bolt. To get the coupler off can be tricky, there are tools for it. Find a socket that fit between the transmission and shaft coupler and was smaller in diameter than the shaft, placed it in place and drew the flanges together with 4 bolts till there was some tension on the socket pushing out on the shaft. Give the coupling a hit on the side with a mallet and hope it releases from the shaft. Its a good idea to keep the shaft from squirting out and causing miscellanious damage a buddy holding it would do this, you just don't want that heavy lever messing around with anything, the strut should hold it pretty well though. Slide it out.

Good time to inspect the bushings in the strut.

Be careful not to warp those couplings by overdoing it on the bolt tension, application of heat/penetrating fluid should ease the amount of effort to get a release..

 

[geriksen]

The description above will not work on the Hurth since the coupler is "backwards" and the shaft goes through the transmission.
They way to pull these is with a large slide hammer screwed on to the propeller end of the shaft.
Remove the prop, take the nut off the transmssion end of the coupler, screw the slide hammer onto the propeller end of the propshaft and proceed to pound away until it pulls out.
There is a company called pro pull that makes the pullers.
With the right equipment you can do this yourself but it may be worth paying a pro to come do this.

 

[LMBoat]

If you have bottom paint on your shafts, scraping them clean <a razor works well> will help the removal and also lessen the damage to the cutless bearing.

 

[J Levine]

I had to do this last winter. I tried a slide hammer and a harmonic ballancer puller with no luck. I knew I needed to heat the coupler to get it off but I really was not too excited about standing in the bilge with a lit torch with a bath tub sized fuel tank above my head. I finally paid the marina to do this for me. Best $250 bucks I have ever spent. The guy that serviced my shafts and wheel sand blasted the couplers and the went back together easily.

 

[flflatrate]

geriksen is right on . You need a pretty big slide hammer to do this. It is best left up to the pros. Also LM said to scrape all the paint off the shaft is deffinitly a must. And if you CRC the shaft it makes it that much easier. Also if you have the tides seals in your boat get a seal protector. its a red plastic piece that you push down your shaft on the inside of your boat to the tides and it protects the seal when removing the shaft. If anyone is looking for spare seals for 1 1/2 shaft boats for tides I have them. 1 1/2 shafts are usually used in 290 aj 310da 320da 330da 340da and 350da

 

[bogus]

Yea, it sounds like I will let the marina do this before splashing this spring. Shafts won't come out until the boat is off the blocks anyway. BTW the reason I,m doing this is because the props are too close to the struts inducing cavitation burn according to my prop guy. I was going to borrow his prop puller so he could tune them up, but when I tried to use it, I found that there was only about 1/8" clearance between the prop hub and the strut, not allowing me to get the prop puller in that space. Gary came to the boat to see what was up, and after looking at it, he called a contact he knew in Florida that cuts shafts for Sea Ray, and he said that the new style props (mine had been replaced before I bought it apparently) are beefier in the hubs, and set them back further towards the strut. Apparently he had seen this before. The only option(I am told) is to cut new shafts 1" to 1 1/4" longer. Anyone else heard of this??

 

[flflatrate]

nope