OMC Stringer YaY!

OK, so I have a 1975 Seaport 23' with a chevy inline 6 (love the engine) and I had to recently purchase a replacement upper and lower gearcase. Unfortunately, the previous upper gear case drive shaft extension(low profile) stripped messing up the lower gear case shaft as well. Both shafts being replaced would have obviously cost more than $150...which is how much I found the replacements for. Details are sketchy, but the seller said these parts came out of a 1970's-ish 20' boat with external steering. He mentioned the engine also being a chevy inline 6 and the setup is obviously low profile and electric shift. Fluids looks great in both units and the impeller looks about new. Now the problem...These new parts incorporated a different steering mechanism which used a push-pull style setup through the transom. While this setup isn't new to me I am wondering what would be the best way to go about this. Adapt the boat to the gear case or adapt the gear case to the boat. I am leaning towards adapting the boat...Which is kind of a shame because I like the steering I have now. Also the gentleman gave me the intermediate drive shaft with a new ball socket so I figured why not swap out the one on my boat while I am at it. Well I took out the 3 retainer bolts...actually 2 of them broke off but I'll handle that later... and with little effort the ball gear fell off the drive shaft and there's only 2 threads remaining...What the hell...?? I guess it's a good thing I felt like changing the gears and an especially good thing I already have a replacement drive shaft. Anyway, with a pair of vice grips bolted to a slide hammer still no luck making the shaft slide out..races n all..The vice grips can't hold the shaft well enough as its diameter is rather large. So I am leaning towards welding a nut to the end of the shaft that the slide hammer screws onto? I figure that'd be best before pulling the engine?

 

Update!!

Alright, so welding a nut to the existing portion of the shaft worked. It came out easily. I installed another shaft with new bearings and it looks good to me. I have installed numerous heli coils as needed and have it most of the way buttoned up. Right now I am stuck on finding the O-Rings for the upper gearcase pivoting retainer plates. I purchased 2 of them off boats.net and I guess they are in short supply as they only sent me one. They also did not have the seal for the exhaust on the upper gearcase which I need because the previous boat had thru-hull exhaust it appears. The O-Ring might be the only thing keeping me from going out into the water HAA!! And now it's time to consider a steering mechanism as This assembly does not have the internal components for Tru-Course and it'd be cheaper to go with a new universal steering system. That being said is anybody interested in a Tru-Course steering cable/wheel assembly?