1959 evinrude 50hp motor trouble.

[Joe Reeves]

Re: 1959 evinrude 50hp motor trouble.

The side plate with two screws that you see about halfway down the long exhaust housing... remove it and the inner plate also. YOu'll see the brass shift linkage coupler inside. Carefully jam that coupler with a screwdriver, long nose pliers, your choice of tool. Now, move the shift handle to and fro (whatever the hell that means). If you can move the shift handle to any excessive degree, there would be play between the shift handle and the brass coupler that must be corrected.

If no play (or very little), then I would assume that the linkage is out of adjustment. You'll see a adjustment bracket at the bottom starboard side of the powerhead. Normally that is adjusted so that each gear is engaged equally.... however, if need be, one direction or the other can be favored somewhat.

Should the gear and dog actually be worn, usually a machine shop can dress them up so that they're back to factory specifications.

 

[Erik.C.]

Re: 1959 evinrude 50hp motor trouble.

Thank you. I appreciate that input. If it's not raining tomorrow and there is still enough daylight after work, I might try that. I like the idea of checking the linkage play against the actual shift rod like you say. I'll try to determine exactly how much play I have and maybe I can adjust out some of that play and/or repair some of that play. Thank you Joe.

 

[Erik.C.]

Re: 1959 evinrude 50hp motor trouble.

I finally got some time to work on this thing again. I decided to run it in a bucket and see if it would pop out of gear while idling. I wanted to try and make a few adjustments to the motor first and see if I could get it running a little smoother first. I started with the idle adjustment on the carb. First thing I did was to turn each needle in all the way while running to see if both sides of the carb were affecting how it ran since it was mentioned earlier that I might have only 2 cylinders firing. I got equal response out of both sides of the carb, so I figured that 2 dead cylinders were ignition. Then I started with the idle needles at 1 1/2 turns out, started the motor and proceeded to try and adjust the idle jets by turning them in at 1/8th turn increments until I noticed a difference in how it ran and then backed them out 1/4 turn.

During this whole thing it has a pretty random miss and it almost sounds like the whole thing just stops for a second. After re-reading the idle adjustment as posted by Joe, I realized that the miss is almost like a lean backfire as mentioned in his instructions. I'm just not sure though. This thing runs so loud that I can't get a feel for the miss.

As it was idling as best as I could get, I did put it in forward and it seemed to stay in gear but I realized that the miss is almost pulling it out of gear or making it seem so just like when I had it in the water a few weeks ago.

1) Any suggestions on dealing with this miss that I have or where to start with that? I did try to pull a plug wire with a long pair of insulated needle nose pliers while it was running and it shocked me pretty good. Ugh. lol. Then I decided to start it with 1 plug wire off at a time and it seemed like it had a pretty equal effect all the way acrossed.

2) Could a bad dead miss cause it to pop out of gear?

Here is a video of it running just now. I hope someone can hear the popping and give me suggestions.