4JH5E with ZF HURTH HBW 250 transmission - Cant remove transmission from engine block

Hi,

I am having difficulty removing the transmission from the Engine block on my 4JH5E engine.
Now the engine is in a boat I am restoring.
The engine had been sitting in water inside the boat for a long time before I purchased the project and there are lots of rusted and corroded parts on the engine that I am going to replace.
The transmission does not appear to have a leak as the oil inside the transmission is sitting at a good level and does not appear to have any water in it.
Same goes for the engine block itself, no water in the oil. it was sealed up well.
However when removing the starter motor it was completely stuffed and will need to be replaced and there is alot of buildup of corrosion and rust in and around the flywheel.
Seen as this area is susceptible to water getting in I wasn't completely surprised by this.

When trying to remove the transmission housing from the engine block (Flywheel cover) I have removed all bolts on the transmission flange and tried to slide the input shaft out but it appears to be jammed up.
I then tried removing the additional flange from the transmission to the flywheel housing. But it doesn't want to budge either.

My personal opinion is that the input shaft into the flywheel is jammed up because of the corrosion buildup inside the flywheel area.

But I am wondering if anyone has some info on removing the transmission from the engine block.
Should it just be the 6 bolts on the transmission and then the input shaft slides out?
Is there something else that I am missing?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

I cant simply afford to buy a new engine for this, and I have rebuilt diesel engines before so I am looking forward to this project, however I need to replace the flywheel and cleanup this area.

Thanks,
Klint.

think you are on the right path...I would suspect the input shaft is hung on the damper plate (or coupler) which is bolted to the flywheel.

Typically, one removes the perimeter bolts attaching the gear to the flywheel cover, installs a couple of supports and then backs off the gear...

Make sure you have all the bolts removed by 1) inspection and 2) checking the factory parts diagrams to get the bolt count. If it won't budge with all of the bolts out, you will have to get creative...likely to be easier to separate the gea if the whole assembly is removed from the hull. Either way, you will have to get creative. Worse case is to drill an access hole in the flywheel cover to remove the damper bolts...