I just completed a major project that was nearly a year in progress. I had the keel and bracket removed, refinished and reinstalled. The boatyard workers and I encountered a number of problems along the way and, with trial and error, successfully resolved them all. I now have a smooth, fair, rust-free keel that swings up and down easily and securely. I also have a lot of helpful info and tips for anyone doing the same, some of which I wish I knew before I began the project .

Besides the obvious things like a lot of rust on the keel, make sure the turning block just aft of the winch is working properly. It carries all of the load when raising from the fully down position. Mine was worn and bound-up, which made raising the keel impossible. I sent it out to be reconditioned and now it works great. Another item to look at is the winch. If it is the original, it is a Boston Gear worm gear winch, self-lubriicating. Make sure it doesn't show signs of leaking oil. I suggest that you confirm in one way or another that all the apparatus for the keel works well. I sent my winch to a Boston Gear service rep for reconditioning, grit blasted the keel and re-epoxied and repainted it, and reinstalled it all with a new cable. Incidentally, the outfit I sent the winch to here in New Hampshire cataloged it, assigned a new serial number, and warranteed their work. All for $150. The best buy I've made in this whole project to date. Check my profile. I've updated my e-mail address.

I don't know about disassembling your trailer, or exactly what you intend to do then. You'll certainly need to be sure you have room to drop the whole assembly and remove it. Besides the PD26, I have a Balboa 20 with a 450 lb. swing keel and removed it in something of the manner you describe. That was difficult enough. Managing an 1100 lb. keel without a lift will be tricky, at least. We used the travel lift at the yard. You'll save a lot of money, and in hindsight I can't imagine doing it otherwise. We lifted the boat off the trailer, set it a few inches off the ground, and built a cradle around the part of the keel exposed beneath the hull.We unbolted the keel bracket from inside and lifted the boat off the keel. The keel was a little wobbly in the cradle until we built it further up the sides of the now completely exposed keel. We used a fork lift to pick-up the keel in its cradle. Removed from the bracket, the yard grit blasted the keel and hung it from an A-frame in a shed where I could re-epoxy and paint it. The biggest advantage to the using the lift was reinstalling the keel. With the bracket reinstalled on the keel, we set the keel in the cradle again and lowered the boat onto the keel until it the bracket was flush up against the top of the trunk and the bolt holes lined up. You have to lower the boat onto the keel to reinstall. Don't try to jack or lift the keel up into the boat. The bracket gets pretty snup at the top of the trunk and you'll just get it hung up and start lifting the boat along with it. Use the weight of the boat to coax the keel and bracket back up into place. Note that when reinstalling, you'll have to be able to move the boat and keel fore and aft in addition to up and down, in order to line up the bolt holes.
After blasting, my keel was very fair. (The yard said it looked excellent compared to most of its age.) At the suggestion of the yard, they treated it with West Marine Rust Lock as soon as it was blasted clean to inhibit any rusting before I got to work on it. Over that, I put two coats of West epoxy, a coat of hard bottom paint as a primer, and three coats of ablative bottom paint. I use a different color for the primer so I can see when its time to repaint. I had a lot of touch up to do after reinstalling it. Here's another reason to use a yard lift if you can. After reinstalling it, they left the boat up in the air for me for a few hours so I could test the system by raising and lowering the keel to be sure it all worked smoothly, and I could touch up the scratches and scrapes on the lowered keel. Another suggestion is to spend a few dollars and replace all the bolts with new, and when the keel is in the fully lowered position, you can reach up and add nuts to the ends of four of the aft bolts where they extend through the bracket, for extra peace of mind. Be sure to replace the bolts with exactly the same length in the same position (there's two lengths of carriage bolts and one length of machine screws) or else they'll catch the top of the keel when it goes up and down. There's no clearance for error. One set of four bolts is an odd length and not available from any of the usual chandleries. I found them at the Fastner Warehouse in Newington, NH. They're very knowledgable about marine stainless and I'm confident I got the best type stainless for the application. All the new bolts, screws and washers in type 316 stainless cost me about $5. You can't go wrong.
I'm curious. Did you run aground and that broke a gear in the winch? Or did the gear break and cause the keel to drop and therefore you ran aground?

I also need to resurface my rusty keel.  I was thinking of doing it myself until reading your post.  Seems like something I would need to do in a good boatyard.  Unfortunatley at our marina they don't even have a selection of nuts and bolts and their prices for lifting the boat off the trailer are ridiculous.

Hoping to get my boat in the water for the first time this weekend and then haul it to Cape Cod on Tuesday.  Wish me luck!

Bob Dubuque

Just found these keel removal pictures in case anyone is interested.  this process has been used to take the keel out of a Dawson.
http://www2.torrisi.org/gallery/slideshow.php?set_albumName=Keel-Project