Besegen
Seaman
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2013
- Messages
- 57
This is my first boat so don't be surprised to see a few moron moves or questions in my discussion. I have a 1975 85 hp Evinrude on a 16' deckboat. I had posted awhile ago about issues shifting to reverse which I did get resolved. The cables were not installed properly and were slipping. They were also looking pretty bad so I'd ordered new and ordered the wrong size. Re-ordered the correct ones but while waiting for them took a planned trip to a lake 3 hours away. 2 miles from the lake the trailer heated a wheel bearing and threw the wheel off on interstate. I'd left it at a shop there to get that fixed and came back three weeks later. We went ahead and did our fishing trip then when we picked up the boat since we were that close.
I was a little concerned about the motor having hit the ground when the trailer dropped on the road but visually inspecting it did not appear at all that it had so we went onto the lake without any further inspection of it. At the lake the boat fired up instantly...which it always has...first or second crank of the key. We were out all day moving all over the lake a number of times and it ran excellent. At one point though the throttle cable burst out of the casing losing us throttle control. We temp fixed that with band-aids from the first aid kit and got going again. A little later the shift cable did the same thing and again we fixed it the same way.
After dark we were headed to the boat ramp and were a little lost. While looking for it we ran aground at about 10 mph on an unmarked hump of shallow rocks in the lake which were likely exposed only because the lake is pretty low right now. The first sign was the prop hitting the rocks and the second I heard it I slammed the shift into neutral hoping to minimize any damage. We pushed away from those and back to open water...fired up the motor, which as always fired right up, then moved on down the shore looking for our ramp cove. We pulled into the wrong cove after about a half hour and I stopped to back up and it wouldn't go into reverse. It wouldn't shift out of neutral into anything. I saw the linkage wasn't even moving and after some inspection figured out the shift cable had given out and broke completely so we puttered the rest of the way home with the trolling motor.
For the half hour after running on the rocks though the boat had run and shifted fine. We'd also fired it up and shut it down a few more times while trying to evaluate the problem with the broken cable and it always fired up fine. After getting home I got the new cables and installed them a few days ago. I'd already messed with the shift cable enough troubleshooting the problem awhile back to know how to get it adjusted right away. The throttle though was a different story. I simply set it exactly like the old one was when I installed it.
Yesterday we took the boat out and dipped the motor in the lake. I figured we could fire it up and I could do any fine tuning on the throttle cable there. Well, it wouldn't start at all. It cranked just fine but wouldn't fire. I got to looking at the linkage in neutral and noticed the idle stop screw was a mile from the stop. I'd looked to in the manual earlier and saw something about that when installing the cable so I figured the throttle was way too far off maybe to start. Adjusted it to where the stop screw was at the stop with the start lever pushed back away from start. There seemed to be far better movement in the linkage and all at this point but still it would not start, it sputters about twice the first crank and it floods fairly quickly. I assume flooding anyway because gas ran out of the carbs. I pulled the plugs, dried them off and let everything air out nearly an hour, then adjusted again with the stop about a quarter inch from the stop and tried again. Had pretty much the same result. Gave up and decided to come home and see what I could do there on muffs later.
I put it on muffs today and had the same result trying to start. Chugged two quick chugs first crank and after that nothing. I also noticed though...on the gear case housing at the bottom of the lower unit there was water coming out of places I don't remember it coming out of before. I've only had muffs on it one time since owning it so I could be remembering wrong. On the starboard side of the housing there is a 1/8" hole just inside each of the bolts mounting the housing to the lower unit, between the two flanges, which water comes out of. On the port side there is another hole the same size about three inches below both flanges. There is also a squarish notch on the backside (towards the transom) dead center at the joint of the gear case and lower unit housings that water streams out of. Are those suppose to be there or not? It confuses me because my first reaction was that we made 'em hitting the rocks. But looking at them, all of them except the notch are perfectly round like they were drilled. There is also a little roughness right around all of them but its under the paint. There isn't any chipping or anything that would indicate we broke them out by impact. Also, at least the two on the starboard side by the bolts, both seem to have old exhaust residue or something stained below them like it has been running down from the holes for quite awhile.
Can anyone tell me is my gear case housing screwed or is it suppose to be like that? And any help with the starting issue would be great as well, or if that housing is messed up is that the starting issue too? I assumed the starting had to be due to me not properly adjusting the cable since it ran perfect two weeks ago at the lake, even after the mishap, and all I've done since then is change the cables and fix the tach. The tach was not working on that trip and while changing cables I found the grey sending wire in the control box had been smashed flat near a splice so I cut it and respliced it. Thanks for any help. Sorry this is so long; I just wanted to be as detailed as possible with background info for anyone helping.
I was a little concerned about the motor having hit the ground when the trailer dropped on the road but visually inspecting it did not appear at all that it had so we went onto the lake without any further inspection of it. At the lake the boat fired up instantly...which it always has...first or second crank of the key. We were out all day moving all over the lake a number of times and it ran excellent. At one point though the throttle cable burst out of the casing losing us throttle control. We temp fixed that with band-aids from the first aid kit and got going again. A little later the shift cable did the same thing and again we fixed it the same way.
After dark we were headed to the boat ramp and were a little lost. While looking for it we ran aground at about 10 mph on an unmarked hump of shallow rocks in the lake which were likely exposed only because the lake is pretty low right now. The first sign was the prop hitting the rocks and the second I heard it I slammed the shift into neutral hoping to minimize any damage. We pushed away from those and back to open water...fired up the motor, which as always fired right up, then moved on down the shore looking for our ramp cove. We pulled into the wrong cove after about a half hour and I stopped to back up and it wouldn't go into reverse. It wouldn't shift out of neutral into anything. I saw the linkage wasn't even moving and after some inspection figured out the shift cable had given out and broke completely so we puttered the rest of the way home with the trolling motor.
For the half hour after running on the rocks though the boat had run and shifted fine. We'd also fired it up and shut it down a few more times while trying to evaluate the problem with the broken cable and it always fired up fine. After getting home I got the new cables and installed them a few days ago. I'd already messed with the shift cable enough troubleshooting the problem awhile back to know how to get it adjusted right away. The throttle though was a different story. I simply set it exactly like the old one was when I installed it.
Yesterday we took the boat out and dipped the motor in the lake. I figured we could fire it up and I could do any fine tuning on the throttle cable there. Well, it wouldn't start at all. It cranked just fine but wouldn't fire. I got to looking at the linkage in neutral and noticed the idle stop screw was a mile from the stop. I'd looked to in the manual earlier and saw something about that when installing the cable so I figured the throttle was way too far off maybe to start. Adjusted it to where the stop screw was at the stop with the start lever pushed back away from start. There seemed to be far better movement in the linkage and all at this point but still it would not start, it sputters about twice the first crank and it floods fairly quickly. I assume flooding anyway because gas ran out of the carbs. I pulled the plugs, dried them off and let everything air out nearly an hour, then adjusted again with the stop about a quarter inch from the stop and tried again. Had pretty much the same result. Gave up and decided to come home and see what I could do there on muffs later.
I put it on muffs today and had the same result trying to start. Chugged two quick chugs first crank and after that nothing. I also noticed though...on the gear case housing at the bottom of the lower unit there was water coming out of places I don't remember it coming out of before. I've only had muffs on it one time since owning it so I could be remembering wrong. On the starboard side of the housing there is a 1/8" hole just inside each of the bolts mounting the housing to the lower unit, between the two flanges, which water comes out of. On the port side there is another hole the same size about three inches below both flanges. There is also a squarish notch on the backside (towards the transom) dead center at the joint of the gear case and lower unit housings that water streams out of. Are those suppose to be there or not? It confuses me because my first reaction was that we made 'em hitting the rocks. But looking at them, all of them except the notch are perfectly round like they were drilled. There is also a little roughness right around all of them but its under the paint. There isn't any chipping or anything that would indicate we broke them out by impact. Also, at least the two on the starboard side by the bolts, both seem to have old exhaust residue or something stained below them like it has been running down from the holes for quite awhile.
Can anyone tell me is my gear case housing screwed or is it suppose to be like that? And any help with the starting issue would be great as well, or if that housing is messed up is that the starting issue too? I assumed the starting had to be due to me not properly adjusting the cable since it ran perfect two weeks ago at the lake, even after the mishap, and all I've done since then is change the cables and fix the tach. The tach was not working on that trip and while changing cables I found the grey sending wire in the control box had been smashed flat near a splice so I cut it and respliced it. Thanks for any help. Sorry this is so long; I just wanted to be as detailed as possible with background info for anyone helping.
