Hey all,
I'm relatively new to boat maintenance. I bought a 1988 Chris Craft with a 4.3 OMC Cobra that hadn't been used in 20 years. It's all in great shape, but had lots of work to be done after 20 years of non-use in a garage. I found out the hard way, though, that it's got some issues. Once I got it running and somewhat dialed in, I put it into gear and there was major clunking. Realized the prop wasn't perfectly aligned, which made me think the prop shaft was bent. Seemed like the noise was from the prop hitting the lower Unit. I've drained it, pulled the prop and bearing carrier, then tried to remove the lower Unit, but it won't come off all the way. It drops down about 1 Inch, then seems to get stuck, maybe on the shift rod? The manual says I should be able to take it off while still on the boat. Any ideas? It's in neutral. I tried seeing if moving it to forward or reverse would help, nada. I'm wondering if it could be related to the dog clutch? Could that cause it to get hung up?
I'm relatively new to boat maintenance. I bought a 1988 Chris Craft with a 4.3 OMC Cobra that hadn't been used in 20 years. It's all in great shape, but had lots of work to be done after 20 years of non-use in a garage. I found out the hard way, though, that it's got some issues. Once I got it running and somewhat dialed in, I put it into gear and there was major clunking. Realized the prop wasn't perfectly aligned, which made me think the prop shaft was bent. Seemed like the noise was from the prop hitting the lower Unit. I've drained it, pulled the prop and bearing carrier, then tried to remove the lower Unit, but it won't come off all the way. It drops down about 1 Inch, then seems to get stuck, maybe on the shift rod? The manual says I should be able to take it off while still on the boat. Any ideas? It's in neutral. I tried seeing if moving it to forward or reverse would help, nada. I'm wondering if it could be related to the dog clutch? Could that cause it to get hung up?