Progress report on stuck drive shaft

Well I figure it was time to post an update on the stuck shaft I am dealing with. As some may recall I was given an 86 8 hp johson by TomFL (thanks again  ) that had a drive shaft that was stuck in the crankshaft. I had tried soaking it in with penetrant and suspending the engine upside down by the shaft, hoping gravity would help out. No dice with Mr. Gravity.
I then decided to be a little more proactive in the persuasion deptartment, so I tried using a slide hammer with the 3 jaw attachment. No dice again  :-/.
At this point I decided to get a little professional help (I didn't want to booger anything up by being over zealous). I called around to see what the cost would be to have a pro remove it and got the shock of the week... no one wanted to touch it. Every shop I called said it wasn't worth their time or explained that at $90 an hr (I really should have gone to school to be an outboard mechanic in my youth) they would quickly cost more than the poor little moter was worth. (they all mentioned cutting the shaft and buying a new one at $130).
At this point I figured it was time to go a little further with this, so I decided to pull the powerhead yesterday, to gain access to the shaft entering the crankshaft. When I pulled them from the cowling I discovered that the penetrant never even made it to the crankshaft  ,  the joint was bone dry with surface rust. Since then I have been hitting it with penetrant and hanging it by the shaft again. Tomorrow I will take some precautions and apply a little controlled heat to the base of the crankshaft followed with some liquid nitrogen (small amounts) to the driveshaft in the hopes it will cause enough seperation to either allow the shaft to pull free or the penetrant to go deeper sooner.
For those of you who like the pictures... I give you the reason why you should always lube your shaft  ;D

 

Sorry about the delay in posting, but somehow life cought up with me and took over what I wanted to do.
I still haven't been able to seperate the shaft from the crank but have continued to mess with it when I am able. Speaking of which, why am I on here when I could be messing around in the garage!

Barry, Thank you for the suggestion. I have a feeling I might be giving that a try today or tomorrow.

 

Great news and I'm almost embarassed to say it, but it took me about another 10 minutes to get the shaft out and most of that was prep time.  [smiley=smilie-iamwithstupid.gif]

For those that may encounter this in the future, this is what I did:
As you may recall I pulled the power head to be able to get to the actual problem area. I tried suspending it upside down while soaking in PB blaster. I even tried to rig up a slide hammer with the gear puller jaws to shock it loose but I couldn't attatch it effectively.
All this down time allowed me to think about a way to shock the shaft loose.  So I inserted the shaft down through a slot on my workbench resting the actual power head on the bench surface. I then slid a 10 lb plate weight up the shaft and gripped the shaft with vicegrips (shaft was protected with folded rag to prevent marring). I then placed a small hose clamp in the grove at the end of the shaft to keep the vice grip from sliding off.
I then used the plate weight as a "slide hammer" against the vicegrips.
4 wacks later and out popped the shaft.

 

Almost sounded like a plan... untill I saw that you were in Texas lol