1958 Evinrude Fisherman 5.5hp pops out of forward

fox.noah · #1 July 5th, 2009, 01:20 PM

Hello,
I have just recently started having this problem with my outboard. It continuously pops out of forward gear. I have never taken it apart, and to my knowledge it has not been damaged when this problem started. It is a manual shift with a lever in the side of the motor. Any help would be greatly appreciated, but nothing too technical, I'm kinda knew to outboards.

OBJ · #2 July 5th, 2009, 01:33 PM

Hi noah....popping outta' gear usually means that the clutch dogs "ears" have worn over and possibly the same with the gears. Over time, the well defined edges of the "ears" wear over from engaging each other when shifting. This causes the ears to disengage and the engine to come out of gear and possibly going back into gear. This has the effect of feeling like your hitting a log in the water.

Remedy is to replace the clutch dog and if warrented, the forward gear also as this gets more ware than the reverse gear. I have seen some guys take the parts to machinist and have them remachined. But they do have to be perfect and not a lot of material removed.

Hope this helps.

F_R · #3 July 5th, 2009, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OBJ

Hi noah....popping outta' gear usually means that the clutch dogs "ears" have worn over and possibly the same with the gears. Over time, the well defined edges of the "ears" wear over from engaging each other when shifting. This causes the ears to disengage and the engine to come out of gear and possibly going back into gear. This has the effect of feeling like your hitting a log in the water.

Remedy is to replace the clutch dog and if warrented, the forward gear also as this gets more ware than the reverse gear. I have seen some guys take the parts to machinist and have them remachined. But they do have to be perfect and not a lot of material removed.

Hope this helps.

No arguement with the above statement, but just to clear up some possible confusion--the detent spring is in the lower unit on a 5.5. Because of that, the "log jump" sensation may be missing and it will simply kick to neutral and stay there. Here is a totally worn out clutch dog. They will kick out way, way, way before getting this bad.