I wouldn't drill up there as you will dril lthrough the exhaust tuner. And if you do that you will have ALOT of work ahead of you as you will have to pull the powerhead, get the rusted and corroded mounts apart and then pull the powerhead adapter off to repair your exhaust tuner.

do you have any suggestions as to how I could lube up the splines to try and seperate it? I am out of ideas as to how to do that...

I would take motor off boat, hang upside down, and then spray the shaft it will run down to the splines. But like I have said I got rid of a motor just for this reason!

Wish you Luck!!!

even if you were to spray the shaft, your still fighting gravity, mj's right. pull the four bolts cables & harness and flip it. or bolt it back up, enjoy the rest of the season and get on it this winter.

I am going to have to third what MJ said. You can get alot more leverage by hanging the motor upside down and with wedges.

You had me so paranoid about the lower unit on my Merc being froze up that, at 11:00 last night I was loosening the bolts and dropping it a half inch. I couldnt' sleep until I found out if it was stuck or not.

And make super sure you grease up those splines when you put it back....or it will be stuck again next time.

What is the exhaust tuner? Is is the tube where the exhaust come down? I figure if I drill up toward the top and front, near where the shifter linkage comes down, there will be no way I would get into the exhaust portion, or can I? I am going to try and make me a hole so I can spray lube on the shaft because I see no other way of actually getting it on there, even if I turn it upside down.

The exhaust tuner on that engine is an expansion chamber type cavity and takes up most all of teh space inside of the mid section, so missing it is pretty hard to do.

turning motor upside down and spraying the shaft were you have it separated all ready, it will run down the shaft to the splines. if you do not do it while it is upside down the oil will never make it there, it will drip off!

As a last resort maybe you could try some jaws of life hydraulics?


http://www.harborfreight.com/media/c...mage_18845.jpg

http://www.harborfreight.com/10-ton-...kit-44900.html

I know where my volunteer fire department guys train and if I showed up with a couple of buckets of KFC or some peetzer I bet they would give it a go.

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