Need Help with 1966 Mecury 3.9 h.p.

dbs52a said:

My deceased father in law left a 1966 Mercury model 39, 3.9 h.p. outboard to his grandson (my nephew) as part of his will. The nephew said it wouldn't run so he brought it to me to have a look at it. The list of things wrong with this motor should have relegated it to the scrap yard. No spark due to an issue with points alignment/grounding in the housing. I fixed that. No fuel getting to the carb due to old fittings being completely worn out. Carb/fuel filter in dire need of cleaning. Fixed that. Water leaking from water jacket due to a crack in the water jacket head cover. Fixed that.

Now to the point where I'm presently at , the gear shift shaft won't shift. Took the bottom end off and noticed that the shift rod is two piece and the splines in the upper portion are worn right off and not engaging with the lower portion. I have a complete bottom end with drive shaft and shift rod. Problem is that the shift rod on the replacement bottom end is one piece, full length so I have to pull the upper portion of the two piece rod out to allow for the installation of the one piece rod. I've removed the six nuts from the power head studs and the engine is loose in the cowling but I can't get the engine out due to the throttle shaft linkage.

Does anyone know how to replace the shift rod on one of these and/or if the throttle linkage has to be removed, what's the process to to that?

Frustration is building.....

Thanks to anyone who can walk me through this problem.

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dbs52a said:

Is the engine and cowling kept together by gasket only or are there some hidden fasteners to be removed before I start hammering on the cowling?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

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