Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

bookerjoe90 · Apr 8, 2011

Bit new to all this so cut me some slack

But have a outboard Mercury 60hp 1983 -1989 sort of age long shaft

Today me and a mate ran it up and took it out for a spin for the first time in afew weeks,
Going along, tiny vibration happening that we mentioned or didnt notice before,
Running abit lumpy on low revs so put it down to that.
10 mins later we opened it up abit and gave afew more revs to bring it on the plane but as we gave it throttle it was like it sprung out of gear and reved freely without no drive.
Got it back to the mooring and tried to turn the prop by hand and was like it was still in gear.

Any suggestions please???

Thanks

Sunfish12 · Apr 8, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

The lower unit is probably shot but first disconnect the shift linkage at the engine and try to shift into neutral by hand.

sxmerc · Apr 8, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

Does the prop turn at all by hand or when running? Sounds as though the pinion gear has cracked and seperated. Was it still pumping water when this all occured? If not, the drive shaft may have broke. Good luck with this one.

picsandpixels · Apr 8, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the thread and have similar problems with my gear stuck in forward, mine a 1987 Mercury 115: I have disconnected all linkage and attempted to manually shift gears (F-N-R) but, suprisingly, the shift rod moves freely without any clicking - it this normal? I assume I should feel some resistance and or hear a click when changing gears. Optimistically, could the lower gear case be out of synch?

Really appreciate any support!

douglas1978 · Apr 8, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

welcome to iboats pics and pixels you should start a new thread. but has the l/u been off recently, did u try shifting gears while the motor is on running on muffs, have you had it serviced by a shop(had a friend that was to lazy and paid a shop local and when he got the boat back it had no reverse )

bookerjoe90 · Apr 9, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

sxmerc said:
Does the prop turn at all by hand or when running? Sounds as though the pinion gear has cracked and seperated. Was it still pumping water when this all occured? If not, the drive shaft may have broke. Good luck with this one.

Prop doesnt turn by hand, and prop doesnt turn when engine is running.
Didnt think to check the water, just killed the engine and brought her in on the backup.
Will go over there today or tomorrow to look at it more in depth.

Will try disconnect the gear linkage as well and do that

Thanks for the replies guys.

bookerjoe90 · Apr 9, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

Ok...Today we went over to the engine, manualy put it into gear and turned the engine over by the fly wheel by hand and proppeller wouldnt turn the...Tried this several times, sometimes gears would slip in nicely and sometimes very hard.

After afew minutes of the engine running water wasnt flowing through the tell tail

As we was unbolting the bottom leg, and as it was slightly loose and engine fully tilted up, we tried it again and fly wheel was turning proppeller in forward and reverse gear.

We now have bottom leg off...Anything you recommend to look out for???

Sunfish12 · Apr 9, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

I still think you have damage in the lower unit. Drop the lower unit gear oil and I bet you'll find metal shavings in there. If so rebuild or get another lower unit.

bookerjoe90 · Apr 9, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

Sunfish12 said:
I still think you have damage in the lower unit. Drop the lower unit gear oil and I bet you'll find metal shavings in there. If so rebuild or get another lower unit.

Yeah there was quite afew iron shavings on the magnet of the oil filler screw, but none in the oil its self or no major chunks of metal

Seems to be fine when turning everything by hand, we dont really fancy doing a rebuild ourselfs but we will think about it if we can borrow our mates work shop to get it done, if not we will just take it to a pro outboard mechanic to have a look and service it.

What we did notice though that the top of the drive shaft has signs of starting to round off...Is that normall???...Its not much at the moment but can tell something has slipped and worn away the teeth slightly.

bookerjoe90 · Apr 9, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

Reading through other threads could this be a spun hub issue???

Sunfish12 · Apr 9, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

No, if it was a spun hub you would have been able to spin the prop by hand as described in first post.

bookerjoe90 · Apr 14, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

Found the problem...Where the drive shaft connects to the engine, there are no splines left,lol ... Engine is in pieces so think we are just going to salvage parts off it to sell and get a new outboard rather than repair

Sunfish12 · Apr 14, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

I think the reason the splines went is because the lower unit froze up and spun the driveshaft in the power head. You should have been able to spin the propeller in neutral.

bookerjoe90 · Apr 15, 2011

Re: Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

Yeah your more than likely rite...Just not worth the money, most likely cost to much to repair now for an old engine, if we fix it god knows what else will go wrong with it,lol

Mercury 60hp - No drive/gears stuck

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