Quote:
Originally Posted by JimF
Two of the cut off bolts came out nicely with an easy-out after being drilled all the way through. The third would not come, and I had to keep stepping up in drill bit size and tried several different easy-out varieties until I got alarmingly close to the threads. This is where a left handed drill bit would have come in handy (which I could not find any where, and will now order online (who has them?).
The remains of the screw eventually spun with the drill out the back of the coupler hole and had to be serially turned and cut off (several steps until I could get the entire carcass of the bolt out. There is not much room behind the coupler and the whole bolt could not come out, so it had to be spun a few threads, cut from behind then spun some more and cut some more. All the while contorted like a pretzel down in the bilge. But I did get the whole thing out and was able to thread in a new bolts in all three holes so no issues with the threads in the old output coupler. The boat is now tucked away for the winter, shaft, re-packed stuffing box and new cutlass bearing will be re-installed next spring.
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Good work. Couple of loose ends: make sure you clean and oil the surface of the output coupling and it wouldn't hurt to match the new shaft coupling up to it for a trial fit to make sure all is set. Check for distortions since you have been working around it. Also, have you planned your new set up so as to give you more room to slide the shaft aft and have better access?