How to grease Main Gear Thrust Bearing?

[Paul462]

Help, Everybody!


The Service Manual for our 1968 C337C calls for greasing the main gear thrust bearings every 500 hours. It's that time (first time for us), so we looked for the grease fitting. NO SUCH LUCK! (no grease fitting - drat). Our Service Manual calls for disconnecting and inspecting the universals, disconnecting and re-positioning the hydraulic actuator, and then SLIDING the forged saddle off the shaft (after removing two through bolts), as illustrated in vivid black and white in Fig. 44.

We removed the two through bolts and gently attempted to slide the saddle off the shaft - no joy. Rapping smartly with a brass hammer (as opposed to rapping stupidly with same) didn't work, nor did copious amounts of WD40 and heating the saddle with a heat gun, all followed by more intelligent rapping with the brass hammer - the saddle won't budge.

So the question: has anybody run across this conundrum when it's time to grease the main gear thrust bearings, and how do we get these consarned saddles off their respective shafts?

Thanks!

Paul Rooy