Here's the motor on the boat on the St. Lawrence river. (Yes, I know it's still tied to the dock.) The boat is an old 13 foot Feathercraft. Motor works great. Starts on first pull, pushes the boat along at a good clip, at least as good as my '54 10HP Johnson does, and it's a LOT quieter. The folks in the neighboring camps appreciate that in the early morning hours.
Well, it didn't work so well for the whole week. Early Thursday morning it suddenly lost forward gear. My brother was out with it at the time, about a mile downriver from our camp. Fortunately, we have walkie-talkies, so he was able to contact me to tow him in with the other boat. Not the first time those walkie-talkies have saved one or the other of us, and it probably won't be the last.
Pulling the access panel off the leg, I see that the shift rod is not moving when the lever is moved. I can move the rod up into forward by hand, and shift it out with the lever, but it won't move up with the lever. That's gotta mean the rod has come loose from the bell crank under the powerhead. I don't remember how that goes, but the parts list I see online (not particularly clear) seems to indicate a nut screws onto the shaft. If so, removing the powerhead should be the hardest part of the fix.
We switched the motor for the spare 9.5 that we took along, and went on from there. Back home now, and back to work, so I won't have a chance to investigate further for a while.