eavega
Lieutenant
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2008
- Messages
- 1,377
My boat is just about ready for water tests/adjustments. Yesterday I muff-tested the motor (1972 Evinrude 50 HP), since it has not been run in about a year. After a few mishaps with the throttle control (I hadn't secured the throttle cable in the right place, so it wasn't throttling up) I got the motor started and turned my attention to the scary part of these motors; the hydroelectric shift. Although the motor was in neutral, the prop was spinning. Uh, oh. I knew that these motors default to forward gear, so something was wrong. I tested the controls per the repair manual (checking for voltage on the blue and green wire when selecting neutral and reverse). Check. Controls were working. Further tested the solenoids per the manual. They have you check the current across the knife connector. That checked out within the mentioned specifications. Next I went to the J. Reeves procedure for testing the shift functionality by applying current directly to the solenoid leads and jumping the starter (in retrospect, I guess that was unnecessary, since I had already determined that the controls were working correctly). No shift. Oh, no. Bad shift solenoid(s)? All this work for nothing?
Then I thought about how the hydroelectric shift works by forcing oil through passages to cause the shift. The solenoids themselves don't shift the gears, oil pressure does. Lets check the gear case oil. I had previously checked that the oil did not have water in it when I bought the motor, and twice since then. I pulled the oil drain plug, and hmmm...only about a pint of oil came out of the foot. I knew that was waaay too little oil b/c I had already checked the gear case capacity (I had purchased new oil for the gear case, just hadn't changed it yet). I then filled the gear case with fresh oil up to its capacity (about 30 oz). Guess what? That was it! Shifting was completely restored.
Since I had verified that shifting was working previously (when I bought the motor, and again when I tested it at home a year ago) I know that at some point there was enough oil in the gear case. I would assume that what happened is that there was JUST enough oil in the gear case, but when I checked the oil just before starting it yesterday the bit of oil it lost was enough to not allow the correct pressure to build up, and thus the shift stopped working.
Just wanted to pass along this tidbit as a further troubleshooting step with these hydroelectric shift motors.
-E
Then I thought about how the hydroelectric shift works by forcing oil through passages to cause the shift. The solenoids themselves don't shift the gears, oil pressure does. Lets check the gear case oil. I had previously checked that the oil did not have water in it when I bought the motor, and twice since then. I pulled the oil drain plug, and hmmm...only about a pint of oil came out of the foot. I knew that was waaay too little oil b/c I had already checked the gear case capacity (I had purchased new oil for the gear case, just hadn't changed it yet). I then filled the gear case with fresh oil up to its capacity (about 30 oz). Guess what? That was it! Shifting was completely restored.
Since I had verified that shifting was working previously (when I bought the motor, and again when I tested it at home a year ago) I know that at some point there was enough oil in the gear case. I would assume that what happened is that there was JUST enough oil in the gear case, but when I checked the oil just before starting it yesterday the bit of oil it lost was enough to not allow the correct pressure to build up, and thus the shift stopped working.
Just wanted to pass along this tidbit as a further troubleshooting step with these hydroelectric shift motors.
-E