Mercury 9.9 kicker, tried to start in gear, now flywheel not being engaged

[Tiki35]

Bonehead move.

I have a 1998 Mercury 9.9HP 4 stroke kicker, tiller model, manual start. Ran perfect day before.

Tried to pull start the motor, but of course it wouldn't pull because it was in gear.
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]Now the cord just pulls out and retracts never engaging the flywheel. The pinion gear is not rising up.[/FONT]
Take off the cowling, and there is a 2 inch metal dowel (not broken) laying on the bottom.
Must be related. Can't see where it would go back in.

Any help,

Mike

 

[tommarvin]

That pin must goes through something, get a big light and see if you can find it.
The pull start is broken, you tube has a lot of videos on this. If you take the pull start apart you will be able to seethe problem and fix it.
boatinfo.no/lib/library.html but the site isn't always going now a days.
Just tear it apart and fix it ,you got this.