Lower Unit Removal, Only 1 Inch

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?

You can’t remove a Cobra lower unit like that; you pull the whole drive off the transom mount (6 nuts & trim rams) and then you can separate them.

louc said:

You can’t remove a Cobra lower unit like that; you pull the whole drive off the transom mount (6 nuts & trim rams) and then you can separate them.

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How does taking the whole drive off change what the shift rod is doing in the unit? Are you able to maneuver it somehow once the drive is off? I'm just trying to understand the mechanics of it and why that would matter for popping a lower unit off?

Also, how heavy is the whole unit? The lower seems pretty light, but I can see where the whole unit may need a hoist or something. Can I remove it by hand and lift it myself?

The shift rod has an indentation in it and it fits over the shifter bell crank in the transom mount. They fit together pretty closely and there is no way the lower unit is dropping off the upper if its bolted to the transom mount. The whole works is about 80 lbs I'd say. I've had mine off every year since about 2007 when I started doing all the maintenance on mine. When you pull the drive, the shift rod moves away from the shifter bellcrank and the lower can come off the upper, but the shift rod needs to be turned to the side first to clear the inside of the upper gear housing.
These pix are not great to show it but the first one is the drive on the drive jack if you look closely you can see the indent in the shift rod.
the 2nd pic if you look closely at the transom mount you can see the shifter bellcrank, the shift rod fits over that when the drive is installed. The 3rd pic is the lower unit with the upper removed, you can see the shift rod clearly but its is turned sideways because that's what you have to do to lift the upper off of it. So, no way the lower is dropping down when bolted to the transom mount. Not like an Alpha. This is a salt water boat in case you're wondering why it looks that bad. Still works great though.
If you don't have one get an OMC original factory shop manual. They are far better than the aftermarket ones. Ebay is a source.