Lower Unit 84 Johnson 60 hp

Took the boat out for a weekend of trout and red fishing, and ended up stranded on Sunday. When I was unloading the boat on Friday I couldn't get the boast into reverse. I passed it off as linkage or something, and wasn't going to let it ruin the weekend. Well it worked all day Saturday and reverse started working again no problems. Sunday i notice a "klunking" noise coming from the motor when the motor was in gear. After hearing this I decided to head back to the ramp, stopping intermittently to see if it was getting worse. It was. It started "klunking" faster, and faster. I slowed to an idle and it still got worse, until nothing. Tried taking the prop off out on the water to check and it was fine, and the shaft was fine. Started the motor to look and the shaft wouldn't spin, and at some point it also got stuck in gear because it won't go back into neutral. I'm going to look at it tomorrow, but any suggestions at where to look, or start first would be appreciated.

Re: Lower Unit 84 Johnson 60 hp

drop the lower unit, and see if it will turn, also turn the flywheel, sounds like you ran the lower with no oil or water in the lower.

Re: Lower Unit 84 Johnson 60 hp

The oil itself looked good. I had just replaced it in September and had not many hours since. The chunks of metal in the oil however were not a good sign. Flywheel turns fine. After pricing single gears and all the specialty tools it would require i'm just going to find a junk motor to get the lower unit off of, or i have found a good one on ebay for $450.

Re: Lower Unit 84 Johnson 60 hp

Chunks of metal in the oil is always a bad omen.

Done that my self several times, till I got smart and started fishing deeper water, could have been from previous prop strikes, I think it puts a small crack in the gear that grows over time until it fails.

I had 2 lowers blow up, both in deep water at WOT.

Keep looking on Ebay, you should be able to find one better than $450 unless that is okay.

I found a lower for my 50 for $125 with a prop, I almost fainted when I got it and no one sniped me.

A wise choice to get a different one, I have been inside several and without the right tools it is very hard to rebuild them and have them last, have run my last Ebay one for 3 years no with no problem.

Re: Lower Unit 84 Johnson 60 hp

I appreciate the advice. I'll keep searching. I did find an old motor that was froze up that a boat salvage yard had. The guy told me the lower unit looked good, and told me I could have it for $200. I'm going to go look and see if its in good shape. I do think your right though, because of the type of fishing I do, I occasionally hit oyster bars and rocks, never to fast, but I think she finally hit one to many.

Re: Lower Unit 84 Johnson 60 hp

Well i have the lower unit off, but I still can't get the throttle to go back into neutral or reverse. Is it possible that the linkage got messed up in all of this?