Re: 9.5hp Johnson/Evinrude characteristics

[Don]

Here is a good lesson I was taught the easy way during my first actual boat yard job, by a senior technician.
Bad mounts can cause the engine to pop out of gear, the powerhead slips back in the cowl pulling the shift linkage back into neutral.
This symptom is easily misdiagnosed when the customer brings the engine in complaining of "jumping out of gear".
Technician puts engine in tank, puts it in gear, advances the throttle, the engine promptly "jumps" out of gear. The technician goes on to rip the gearcase apart only to find no real wear/problems with the clutch dog/gear lugs, he is stumped/confused.
The clue here is the actual symptom which the technician experienced but didn’t pay enough attention to. Normal clutch dog problems cause the engine to buck/jump while the gear/dog lugs bump over one another, but the engine stays in gear. This mount issue will cause the engine to jump out of gear, rev up, and just stay in neutral.
I never worked on many 9.5s, only split apart the cowls on one of them, but always remembered Tony’s lesson!