Reply To: Further help needed with HT27 cutlass bearing removal

Geoff&Chrissie, You were right! It was mud and the bearings were only 4″ long. Real horrors to get out though. So tight they stripped the thread on my home made puller. For anyone interested here’s how I got them out. I had to weaken the bearings by cutting along them with a reciprocating saw in three places (not as dodgy as it sounds, just take it slow). I then started to collapse the bearings with a cold chisel. However, both began to move backwards in the prop shaft housing (free at least, so progress as far as I was concerned). But, they still needed pulling out. How to do this when you can’t introduce a washer wide enough to cover the bearing since there is a collar at the top of the shaft housing, as I mentioned previously. Of course maybe the top of the shaft housing can be unscrewed thus removing the collar, I don’t know. Instead, I fabricated an oval washer (36 mm long and 25 mm wide) with a 10 mm central hole for a 10 mm threaded bar to pass through and two small holes for copper guide wires. I pushed this washer sideways through the bearings from the outside aft end then turned it face on by pulling on the copper guide wires. I then pushed a 1 metre threaded 10 mm bar through the hole in the washer, pushing it right up the shaft housing past the collar at the top until it protruded into the bilge area (holding the oval washer in place with the wires). I then put on two nuts at the inside end of the bar and pushed and pulled it all the way back down till the nuts hit the oval washer. I then put a piece of scaffolding tube 6″ long on the bar outside the boat and with two large washers and a nut tightened all this onto the aft end of the shaft housing. I finally added two nuts on the aft end of the shaft, tightened against each other. Using this puller I wound out the bearings, using the last two nuts to stop the bar turning while I tightened the other nut up against the large washer.
Cleaned up the shaft housings and I’m now ready for new bearings.
Thanks for all the advice.
Alastair