Re: '57 Lark Swivel Bracket frozen?
I removed the screw & pumped grease grease in the zerk fitting. I sprayed PB blaster down the screw hole and up from the bottom. I've let it soak for a couple of weeks now with no movement.
My thoughts are that I do not want to torque the steering bracket for fear of breaking the casting, but tapping with a mallet upward seemed a better option.
I just wanted to make sure there weren't any clips that I was missing that would prevent vertical movement.
Mas
I've removed lots of those things. Salt water, y'know. Beating on it probably won't help-too much mass to move.
You already have it torn apart too much to do it the way I do them. But here goes:
You need something to heavy clamp the stern brackets to, like a boat. Lock the tilt lock down. Then you need something to lift several hundred pounds, like a hoist. Then you need to attach your hoist to the steering bracket near the pivot, like with a sling. Then apply a bunch of lifting force with the hoist while man-handling the steering bracket back and forth. It will be tough at first but get easier as it comes up a bit.
Once you get it out, you will find a "wooden" liner inside the swivel bracket, at the top. There is a pin, similar to a rivet, holding it in place. Tap the pin out from the outside with a hammer and punch. Now, notice that the liner is split along one side. Drive something like a knife blade in between the liner and bracket, beside the split line. That will collapse the liner inward till the edges overlap along the split. Once overlapped, it will lift out easy. Remove the co-pilot spacer and plate. Then scrape all that crap out that was between the liner and bracket. That crap is what was making it tight. Make sure the grease fitting is open, then grease everything liberally with some good waterproof marine grease, and reassemble. If you didn't break the liner, you shouldn't need any new parts.
