Thank you, Stan, for the coaching on removing my coupling and transmission from my Beta 38 as the least painful way to bring my prop shaft in enough to remove my problem cutlass bearing. Today I got the stage set, arranging access, supports, tools, and so on and so will attack the thing in the coming days. In gathering the right tools, 17 mm seemed the only reasonable wrench for both the six bolts attaching the transmission plate to the flywheel housing and also for the nuts and bolts attaching the R&D coupling. That said, while the 17 mm fit was very solid on the nut side of the R&D coupling, the 17 mm had an uncomfortable amount of play on both the bolt side of the R&D coupling and on the transmission plate attachment bolts. 16 mm was definitely too small to fit (through, I admittedly did not scrape all the paint off) and the nearby English sizes were even further off the mark. Any subtlety here that I'm missing or just jump in with the 17 mm, even though there seems to be some play?
Just to add here ... is there a general strategy on which fasteners are metric and which English? Is that everything on the basic Kubota engine is metric and all marinating by Beta is English? Had to adjust the main belt tension and the bolts securing my alternator seem to all be 1/2", when the basic engine is metric! What gives?
