gear shift adjusting in powerhead of 25hp Johnson

[Al Ashton]

I had my forward gear remachined and installed it myself. It ran perfectly for a week then started kicking out of gear again so I tore it down and found the ears had rounded again. I contacted the man that had remachined it and thankfully he agreed to do the work again free but suggested that I didn't have the gear shift adjusted correctly in the powerhead. I'm a poor man so have to do the work myself and would like to get it right. How is this adjustment made? Any help would be greatly appreciated. It's a 1975 25hp Johnson.

[strikeback03]

are you shifting at the motor, or with a remote cable shifter? The cable system can be a pain to make work, so get it shifting right at the motor first.

[tashasdaddy]

classic case of doing one and not the other. do forward, clutch dog, and reverse. then reinstall. and still may not hold up.

[Bindernut]

TD is right. Did you replace the clutch dog when you had that gear reground? It's darn near impossible to grind the dog and have it last. It'll lose a lot of it's case hardened surface. Best to replace the dog.
The gears are a little more tolerant to resurfacing the engagement surface but depanding on how much material material is removed you'll remove a lot of case hardening on it too and it won't hold up very well afterwards.

Hopefully your machinist squared up the edges of the gear/dog instead of the face. If he "faced" it, then the dog or gear will be too short and won't engage far enough to stay in gear.

With good gears/dog, you'll need to adjust the linkage on the motor first, then attack the remote cable (if yours has a remote unit). With the LU in neutral, make sure the shift lever on the side of the powerhead is centered in the small detent on the lockout lever under the cowling. The shift lever is splined for adjustment.