I have a 2004 Suzuki DF140 4-stroke motor with ~900 hours. I am experiencing an single jolt (felt through the boat and the throttle arm) issue during acceleration from neutral.
Issue: When you start in neutral, and you slowly begin to accelerate, the motor seems to engage with the forward gear and the boat will start moving forward. If you pause around 1400 RPM and then attempt to accelerate, around 1800 RPM you will feel a sudden Kick (it feels like almost like you were rear-ended in a car), and then the motor will continue accelerating as if nothing ever happened. Once the kick occurs, there does not seem to be any further issues. The motor runs fine in the 2500-5000 RPM range
Reproducibility: The kick does not occur every time, however it is readily reproducible. I would guess that it occurs 50% of the time when accelerating, from neutral.
I spoke with the mechanic at our Suzuki dealer, and he says they have 1 DF90 work boat that behaves the same way, and he does not know what causes it.(Not very comforting)
After additional diagnosis today, we noticed interesting shift cable/linkage behavior.
With the cover off the motor, if you watch the Shift Linkage, under normal conditions when in forward gear and accelerating there seems to be about 1/4" of the non-threaded metal shift rod (the rod that attaches to the linkage) sticking out of the sleeve.
Now, when we observe the issue occur, when in forward gear and accelerating there initially seems to be about 1/4" of the non-threaded metal shift rod (the rod that attaches to the linkage) sticking out of the sleeve, then when the motor kicks, the 1/4" of non-threaded metal shift rod disappears into the sleeve, and the stopper nut butts up to the seal on the sleeve of the shift cable.
Does anyone have any idea what would cause this behavior?
Thanks,
Jon
Issue: When you start in neutral, and you slowly begin to accelerate, the motor seems to engage with the forward gear and the boat will start moving forward. If you pause around 1400 RPM and then attempt to accelerate, around 1800 RPM you will feel a sudden Kick (it feels like almost like you were rear-ended in a car), and then the motor will continue accelerating as if nothing ever happened. Once the kick occurs, there does not seem to be any further issues. The motor runs fine in the 2500-5000 RPM range
Reproducibility: The kick does not occur every time, however it is readily reproducible. I would guess that it occurs 50% of the time when accelerating, from neutral.
I spoke with the mechanic at our Suzuki dealer, and he says they have 1 DF90 work boat that behaves the same way, and he does not know what causes it.(Not very comforting)
After additional diagnosis today, we noticed interesting shift cable/linkage behavior.
With the cover off the motor, if you watch the Shift Linkage, under normal conditions when in forward gear and accelerating there seems to be about 1/4" of the non-threaded metal shift rod (the rod that attaches to the linkage) sticking out of the sleeve.
Now, when we observe the issue occur, when in forward gear and accelerating there initially seems to be about 1/4" of the non-threaded metal shift rod (the rod that attaches to the linkage) sticking out of the sleeve, then when the motor kicks, the 1/4" of non-threaded metal shift rod disappears into the sleeve, and the stopper nut butts up to the seal on the sleeve of the shift cable.
Does anyone have any idea what would cause this behavior?
Thanks,
Jon
