Help Removing Lower Unit

[HookedOnMarsh]

Ok, a little brute force and she's out.
I had to use a pickle fork and work it very slowly until I had a little over 1 inch clearance all the way around. Then there was no more leverage possible. Got pissed off at the front stud that had caused all this grief and cut it off with the sawzall! Thank goodness for powertools! Now I'm left with 1 inch of usable stud coming from the lower unit that I intend to weld a piece of threaded rod or something to it and boring out the hole a little in the tailshaft housing to accomadate the weld and putting it back together.
Question is can it live without the front stud? Someone also forgot to put the bolt back in under the anode that was in it last. Got to check to see if they stripped it out or just left it out.
Whole problem was the clown last in it used a non stainless washer and it corroded. All the corrosion went down the front stud and froze it in the tailshaft. Going to be one fun job to beat the rest of the stud back out if I have to have that front stud on there.
Whadda ya think. Front stud or no front stud?