Reply To: Johnson &Evinrude jumping out of gear 51/2 to 40 hp older motors

[Anonymous]

OK, now as Paul Harvey would say this is the rest of the story. Case #1 The gear foot has a new looking clutch dog and new looking dogs on the gears and pops in and out of gear. The linkage adjustment at the shift lever was checked and the detent pin was correct. I went looking for the problem by disassembling the gear case and inspecting the linkage for wear. I checked the gear and cradle, fork nubs and linkage hole in fork, lower shift rod elbow that mates to the fork. No wear was found when checking all contact points in the linkage in the gear foot. No looseness in the linkage was found in the gear foot, for lack of a better word the linkage was “snug”. Reassembled the gear case and then removed the inspection cover the the side of the lower unit exhaust housing and checked the linkage connector, it was fully assembled correctly. Before closing the cover, I grabbed the linkage and tried to move it up and down looking for any play and found I was able to move it perhaps 1/4 of and inch. Next I pulled the power head to check for the source of the play. The shift lever where it enters the housing was not loose or worn. The upper shift rod to lever connector (swivel 303702) was not loose. The connector(swivel 303702) to shift rod lever(377188) was not loose. But the lever (377188) to adjusting lever shaft (277871) assembly was loose. The shaft was not worn, but the lever was worn where it mates to the shaft. Because the little lever(377188) is $40.00 , I did a outside the box repair. The lever is split and held on tight to the shaft by a cross drilled screw that squeezes the split lever tight on the shaft. But because of the wear it could not take up the wear on the inside diameter. I made up a .002 brass shim that I slid into place between the shaft and lever to take up the slop., then the screw could clamp the lever tight to the shaft. Now the linkage has no play or looseness and the clutch dog is fully meshed with the gear dogs and will not vibrate or hop out of engagement. Case #2 This motor that was assembled with rounded off clutch dog and the very worn dogs on the gears that would not pop out of gear. I checked the linkage for play through the side cover. You could not move the linkage, it was snug. My conclusion is that the very most important thing to prevent the popping out of gear is a snug, absolutely no play in the linkage from the gear all the way to the shift lever. The contact area of engagement between the dogs is very small.