Chris Farris
Recruit
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2009
- Messages
- 5
I am left without any guesses, so I am asking the experts here if anyone has seen anything like this before.
Here's the evidence:
I was about 3/4 of the way through a hole shot and almost planed off when all the sudden the motor jumped out of gear.
I removed the lower unit and inspected as much as I could. The shift rod would hit all three positions R, N, F, if I grabbed it with a pair of pliers and rotated it. I was relieved. I thought "great, at least my lower unit is ok." There was a small piece of gravel in the plastic collar which surrounds the connection between my shift shaft and shift rod. I thought this little piece of gravel might have been the culprit. It made sense to me that this little piece of gravel might get the plastic collar in a bind and seperate the shift shaft from the shift rod. (I noticed that this collar will separate the two if it "walks" down a little bit in it's grooves).
I removed the piece of gravel, rejoined the shift shaft and put the lower unit back on. I checked it with the engine off and it does clearly go into all three positions. I thought I was good. I went to the lake. I launced the boat and lo and behold-the engine won't shift into gear while running.
I am completely stumped. There doesn't seem to be any logical reason why the running engine would even effect the shifting of the lower unit. by the way, the engine streams water great, so I am going to assume that the drive shaft is ok since it's spinning the impeller.
Does anyone have any ideas? The only thing I can think of is maybe removing the shift rod and inspecting it. It does not look to me like I would have to remove the power head to do this, so I might go ahead and try it.
Any help from the experts would be appreciated.
thanks.
Here's the evidence:
I was about 3/4 of the way through a hole shot and almost planed off when all the sudden the motor jumped out of gear.
I removed the lower unit and inspected as much as I could. The shift rod would hit all three positions R, N, F, if I grabbed it with a pair of pliers and rotated it. I was relieved. I thought "great, at least my lower unit is ok." There was a small piece of gravel in the plastic collar which surrounds the connection between my shift shaft and shift rod. I thought this little piece of gravel might have been the culprit. It made sense to me that this little piece of gravel might get the plastic collar in a bind and seperate the shift shaft from the shift rod. (I noticed that this collar will separate the two if it "walks" down a little bit in it's grooves).
I removed the piece of gravel, rejoined the shift shaft and put the lower unit back on. I checked it with the engine off and it does clearly go into all three positions. I thought I was good. I went to the lake. I launced the boat and lo and behold-the engine won't shift into gear while running.
I am completely stumped. There doesn't seem to be any logical reason why the running engine would even effect the shifting of the lower unit. by the way, the engine streams water great, so I am going to assume that the drive shaft is ok since it's spinning the impeller.
Does anyone have any ideas? The only thing I can think of is maybe removing the shift rod and inspecting it. It does not look to me like I would have to remove the power head to do this, so I might go ahead and try it.
Any help from the experts would be appreciated.
thanks.