The first phase of the project was to remove all cleats, lights, metal, and the engine. I learned very quickly that it is easier said than done. Each and every screw or bolt had rusted through and had rusted itself to whatever I was trying to remove. A lot of WD-40 and lots of elbow grease later I had everything off but the engine, steering wheel, and pulley system. Each one posed it's own problem. First of all, the engine weighed much more than I could handle manually. Out came the trusty old Kubota. After removing all the screw's were removed, I chained that monstrosity to the buckett and lifted up. Once again, easier said than done. My first attempt resulted in me lifting up the entire boat. It did not want to go. Not at all. Fine. I lowered it and started over. Each and every time resulted in another failure. Until I decided the tractor wasn't helping anything. So. Here we go. My brother and I tried lifting the thing again. Nope. Doesn't work. I finally realized that there was another screw attaching the engine to the transom. The head of the bolt had rusted off and it looked almost as if the screw was part of the engine itself. I hammered that damn screw out of there and got the tractor. Again. Round two. Engine comes right off the transom. On the way to my truck, however, was more difficult. The chain came undone, allowing that massive thing to fall four feet to the ground. After finally getting it into the truck I was beat. Done for the day.
The next morning's project was the steering system (a set of pulley's connecting the steering wheel to the engine). A previous owner had thru bolted the pulleys. Eventually brute force is what got the thing off of there. The steering wheel posed another problem. Like the rest of the bolts on Glasspar, the bolts connecting the steering wheel to the boat were rusted through. I ended up cutting it out with a grinder. Whoops. I guess I'm gonna have more work towards the end of the project.