I recently finished pulling the prop shaft flange on our H41AC in order to replace the stern tube hose and re-pack the stuffing box. This was accomplished during a fairly short haul out at McCuddy's Marina on Hayden Island in Portland, Oregon. As an aside, McCuddy's is the only DIY boatyard in all of the Portland area.
Prior to the haul out, I machined a plate and some pushing slugs to remove the flange from the prop shaft and I also made a clamp that attaches to the prop shaft for the purpose of pulling the flange back onto the prop shaft. The first photo shows the pulling plate in place with the longest pushing slug bearing on the end of the prop shaft (two others were used before this one, necessitated because of the limited space between the gearbox flange and the packing gland). The second photo shows the clamping block, pushing plate and the jacking bolts. Both the pushing plate and the clamp block have 3/8-24 threaded holes and clearance holes for use in different situations. The clamping block was bored to match the prop shaft diameter (1-1/4") and then 0.025" was milled off of the inner surfaces to facilitate a secure clamping action on the shaft using the cross-drilled bolts, the heads of which can be seen on the right side of the clamping block.
As an aside, the pushing plate was also used to force the prop shaft gland into the stern tube hose once it was mounted on the stern tube. We just couldn't get the right purchase on the packing gland to get it into the stern tube hose so we improvised and used the pushing plate to exert force between the output flange of the gearbox and the prop shaft gland to gently coax it into the stern tube hose. It was slow going with the 3/8-24 jacking screws but it got the job done.
All in all, I was happy with the way that this tooling facilitated completing the job at hand. The only thing that I might change is to make the clamping block thinner than the 3/4" plate used. That would have made working in the limited space between the gearbox flange and the packing gland slightly easier.
Prior to the haul out, I machined a plate and some pushing slugs to remove the flange from the prop shaft and I also made a clamp that attaches to the prop shaft for the purpose of pulling the flange back onto the prop shaft. The first photo shows the pulling plate in place with the longest pushing slug bearing on the end of the prop shaft (two others were used before this one, necessitated because of the limited space between the gearbox flange and the packing gland). The second photo shows the clamping block, pushing plate and the jacking bolts. Both the pushing plate and the clamp block have 3/8-24 threaded holes and clearance holes for use in different situations. The clamping block was bored to match the prop shaft diameter (1-1/4") and then 0.025" was milled off of the inner surfaces to facilitate a secure clamping action on the shaft using the cross-drilled bolts, the heads of which can be seen on the right side of the clamping block.
As an aside, the pushing plate was also used to force the prop shaft gland into the stern tube hose once it was mounted on the stern tube. We just couldn't get the right purchase on the packing gland to get it into the stern tube hose so we improvised and used the pushing plate to exert force between the output flange of the gearbox and the prop shaft gland to gently coax it into the stern tube hose. It was slow going with the 3/8-24 jacking screws but it got the job done.
All in all, I was happy with the way that this tooling facilitated completing the job at hand. The only thing that I might change is to make the clamping block thinner than the 3/4" plate used. That would have made working in the limited space between the gearbox flange and the packing gland slightly easier.
