I picked up the new shafts this afternoon, and after a very late start after work, finally arrived at the boat at 8:00PM and decided to get the torch out.
First thing I did was to heat up the strut casings around the strut bearings (again) and saturate things down with GIBBS BRAND (specialty penetrating oil, and no, I don't sell the stuff or have any interest in the company! It just works!).
Then I decided to start tapping just to see what happened. Did the Starboard side first and it came out begrudgingly, but hey at least it came out! The Port side, after seeing the fight the Starboard side put up and lost, decided to just throw in the towel and give up, and it came out a lot easier.
Here are photos of the Pors side coming out, and you can see it was pretty dark when it finally came out. I didn't plan on staying that long but having that much fun, time just got away from me and I got home around 10PM after stopping for a sandwich.
Now everything is apart and the re-assembly process begins. Hopefully this will run smooth and fast!
In the last photo you can see the strut bearing has been soaked down with solvent, and it actually "appeared" to be in pretty good condition, however, I suspect the solvent made the rubber swell up a bit and feel more snug than it really was. In cold water a while back, I could wiggle the shaft a bit and that indicated I really needed to replace these things. In any case they're out! I'm going to do an interior hone on the struts themselves, to be sure there is no galling when the new bearings are inserted.
Paul