Hi Herbert and others,

Just remember that everything you do to the shaft coming out of the C drive you are doing to the C drive. The shaft goes through a lip seal to a bearing to bevel gears. Every hammer blow hits those bevel gears and the bearings. The heat applied gets to the lip seal. Think about it. 

And I ask why. By the simple expedient of cutting the heads off the bolts holding the vetus coupling together I avoided the need to remove the c drive connection. I then replaced those bolts with a high tensile rod threaded each end and two nuts.

In separate operations at different times I have: replaced the vetus rubber bushes, replaced the gear box, changed the engine and changed the engine mounts. None of these required the removal of the coupling off the c drive shaft

The first of these was the rubber bushes. I tried to get the c drive connection off, and like you all found it very hard. Because there was a simple, non damaging alternative I wasn't prepared to subject my c drive to abuse. 

Regards

Danny

SM 299 Ocean Pearl