Here's where the shaft connects to the Atomic 4.

Here's where the shaft enters the hull. Observe the packing gland nut. I opened this up as the first step.

Socket in place on the lock pin which secures the shaft. I used 1/2" socket.

Next step was to remove the three 3/8" bolts on the shaft coupling.

Here's where the shaft enters the coupling. Notice the keyed shaft which prevents it from spinning in place. This is a tight friction fit and kind of a pain to remove.

Shaft coupling separated form the engine. I pulled the prop from the outside for this.

Shaft coupling and packing gland with flax.

If you look down that pipe, you can see the cutlass bearing.

Another shot showing the tube and cutlass bearing.

This is the part where I had to call in the big guns--the use of a Sawzall and, more importantly, my father. Cutlass Bearing Removed! We attempted to make two vertical cuts in the cutlass bearing using a Sawzall. I couldn't find a long enough Sawzall hacksaw blade so I wound up purchasing 9" emergency and rescue blades. These blades have slightly larger teeth than a hacksaw but smaller than wood blades. In retrospect, I think what we needed for this operation was the 'jaws of life'.

Another shot of the removed cutlass bearing. After making some cuts, we pried in the ends with a hammer and screwdriver. It was difficult to make straight cuts all the way down the tube. As a result, we were only able to pry in the first inch or two of the bearing. As my friend, Erich Smith, put it, "You are using a Sawzall?!?? Not exactly what I would call a precision tool."

Looking down the cutlass bearing. Note: the rubber insert wasn't this bad until we tried to cut it out with a Sawzall.

Stern tube removed! This wasn't exactly intentional. After making a few cuts and doing some prying, we still couldn't get cutlass bearing to budge. The stern tube, however, did start to move. As a result, we finally hit the stern tube from the outside until it fell inside the hull.

Cutlass bearing and stern tube side-by-side. We had removed the stern tube with the cutlass bearing still intact. The next step was to drive out the cutlass bearing.

Using a 1" NPT (about 1 3/8" outer diameter) black steel pipe, we hammered out cutlass bearing. There is absolutely no way that we would have been able to hammer this out while it was will in the boat. Here is black steel pipe used to drive the cutlass bearing out of the stern tube. This pipe didn't have a mushroom head when we started.

Next step--wait for the new cutlass bearing to arrive and put humpty dumpty back together again!

The part you are looking at is from Morse Marine Bearing,. Their part number is "Bonito"-- 1 x 1.5 x 4.  You can purchase them from both West Marine as well as Defender.  West Marine pricing is about $80 and when I spoke with them a couple of weeks ago, they had the part in stock.  Defender, on the other hand, will sell you the same part for about $60, but they don't stock the part, so you'll have to wait for 2 weeks to get it.  I couldn't justify giving West Marine the business in this case. 

If you are interested in ordering from Defender, you'll need to call or email them as they don't list the part on their online catalog... 800.628.8225.

New cutlass bearing and stern tube are back in place. I caulked the stern tube in with 5200 Fast Cure.