Disconnecting the shaft drive for engine removal

Need some advice. I'm pulling my engine and have to disconnect the shaft drive. According to good old Mr Shop Manual, all I have to do is insert a wire or suitable tool into the connecting pin hole and push slightly on the connecting pin and then slide the yoke of the propeller shaft back to free the shaft from the driven gear joint.
Right! Disregarding the fact that there's no room to work this little maneuver, I can feel the connecting pin give and then I can slide the yoke back about 1/8th of an inch, then nothing. It pops right back into place every time I let off of it.
Any suggestions before I do something stupid and force it? What should I be looking for here?

i recently did that and i just had to worry it a bit, keep trying it will com e off

watch out though the pin went flying when the swing arm finally came off

So far no luck. It's currently ahead in the game of frustration.
How far should the pin go in to release the yoke? Whenever i try to slide the yoke back, it feels like it's hitting up against something and won't slide any farther back. Should I have some give or play on the backside of the yoke and maybe it's locked up?

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Gotta love it when the manual assumes you automatically know all the intermediate steps. I've probably been too cautious on the disassembly and haven't tried some of the obvious things and this makes sense.
Your picture is almost a duplicate of what mine looks like right now.
If you ever want to get rid of that exhaust, let me know. Mines been modified and I'd like to go back to the original configuration.

Hi KZCM,
Can you do me a favor and measure from the bearing to the end of the spline.
Reason being is that I am running a 180 rear and a 5/8 offset sprocket. With the std output shaft there was only about 8mm of spline for the stock sprocket which is std.
My problem is that with the first offset sprocket I got it had a 14mm spline wall thickness and only the stock 8mm spline to locate on, in the end it sheared the spline and sprocket. after 9500ks
I was able to get 2 more output shafts which 1 was about 6/7mm longer than the stock shaft from my engine.
I would like to know what bike it came out of.
I'm thinking it be from a shaft drive.

This would be very handy for those who convert to a wide arse and have a shitload of HP.

Thankyou and best regards Harvey

Harvey1327,
Are you talking about the distance from the bearing to the end of spline on the final gear case? On mine, the distance is about 32MM
In KZ250LTD's picture, it looks to be longer than what's on my bike. May be just an illusion though.

This is some kind of kraaazy good luck: I am doing the exact same thing to the exact same bike tomorrow morning. I logged on to see what people on this forum had to say on the subject, and Holy Krap, it's at the top of the list in the Engine Forum. You guys rock! I am slightly disappointed that I didn't get to use the spiffy new search function, but I'll get over it. Thanks for the info.

I can't see the answer. It's disappeared? I've got everything disconnected and I just can't get the shaft to disconnect from the case. Can someone please give me a step by step?

i had to take mine lose on my kz1100 and i just removed the drive hub and rear tire the shaft will slide back and give you a ton of room might wanna get a friend to help hold the swingarm when you slip the shaft back though

jdbusch hit it like the original answer. You have to pull the rear tire and drive hub off first. Once that's done, follow the steps in the manual and you'll be good to go. Depress the sliding joint connecting pin and slide the propeller shaft off. One note of caution: Keep your hand over the pin area as you slide it off so it doesn't go flying when it's freed up.