Shaft & strut location

[Phil Spicer]

All 34's are NOT created equal !!! Asked the yard owner to pull my prop so I could change the shaft, cutlass bearing, log & stuffing box. Yard owner said I would need to drop the rudder as well, "the shaft looks to be dead center on the rudder." With all of my knowledge from the MB I assured him the shaft would just miss the rudder. He shook his head & walked away. After the yard owner pulled the prop he said good luck.
The bottom line.He was right. I may have seen pictures here on the MB showing the shaft going past the rudder, but not on my boat ! The shaft couldn't be centered on the rudder any better than it is, or it would be off center.
The moral of the story is, the shaft may clear the rudder, or it may not, so be ready to drop the rudder if you pull the shaft.
The boat was sitting with the rudder over a steel walk way to a docks so digging a hole was not an option. The yard slopes enough so when I sat the rudder down on a small block of wood I could angle the post enough to pull the shaft. No digging, no moving the boat.
No need to post pictures, I'm sure you get the picture.

[Ken Juul]

Ron please correct me if I'm wrong.  I think the cutlass bearing must be removed first to give the clearance necessary for the shaft to slide past the rudder.  Home made tools to do this have been discussed several times.

[Ron Hill]

Phil : If I were going to change the cutless, shaft and packing gland here's how I'd do it:
As Ken mentioned you could sguirt the cutless out of the strut with a special tool.  Or just cut the shaft as you're going to change it anyway.  The take a hack saw to the cutless fron the i nside, collaps it and remove.

Guess the my cutless was soo bad that it allowed the shaft to clear the rudder.