Propeller Shaft

There was a lot or wear on the shaft at the cutlass bearing. I don't know if the shaft had ever been out of the boat but my guess is no. The coupler was pretty hard to get off.

The prop shaft was badly worn at the cutlass bearing. This is the freshly re-packed stuffing box with a new hose and clamps. The prop shaft is also new. I cleaned up the bronze packing gland and buffed it with a buffing wheel. I clear coated it with McLube. We'll see how it holds up. The new hose was shorter than the original but this did not seem to present any problem especially with the new prop shaft. Another photo of the stuffing box/hose

Here are a couple photos of the cutlass bearing on my 10M. The bearing is a beam type, 1-1/8 ID, 1-1/2 OD, 4-1/2 long. My strut had one set screw hole on the port side. I added two more on starboard. When installing the bearing I drill two small depresions on the bearing surface through the screw holes (using a centering bit with a sleeve).

A couple days before removing the bearing I squirted some PB Blaster in the set screw holes and at the ends. I repeated that a couple days later. I tapped the bearing out with a screw driver pressed into the rubber at the forward end. I didn't want to risk gouging the inner surface of the strut housing. When I got the bearing our I could see that the PB Blaster had worked it's way almost completly around the bearing surface. It only took a few squirts and some patience. Great stuff.