Reply To: Mid-1970s 85 HP Johnson Remote Control Problem

[David Stanton]

Hey Fleetwin – I’m making progress on my neighbor’s 85 HP , and have a couple more questions.  Note that I verified it’s a 1979.

1.  I now have the throttle and shift linkage at the motor working well, except for the timing advance plate which is still hard to move.  I pulled the flywheel and sprayed PB Blaster  and it freed up slightly, but not near enough.  To take it apart further, I have to remove the alternator stator ring.  The Allen-wrench screws that hold it in are very tight. Are they good hardened screws so there is no danger of twisting/breaking them?   Should I just use and allen wrench? or would an impact driver be better to loosen them up to avoid breakage?
2. The remote control is not working right.  It moves the cables without binding up, and the idle/start lever moves the throttle to the “start” cam mark in the motor like it should. It moves the carb to wide open fine, but the throttle lever will not come back far enough to shift to reverse.  The remote throttel lever does not quite come back to straight-up positon, even with the cables both disconnected at the motor, otherwise the cables work fine going between neutral and forward without binding up,and to wide open throttle.  Retarding the remote throttle lever gets it to neutral with the lever a bit ahead of straight up, and won’t come back any farther.  Squeezing the button undeneath the handle on the throttle lever does nothing.  The idle/start lever is all the way down where it should be, and in Neutral functions as it should to increase throttle to the start cam mark.  Is the throttle/shift lever supposed to be straight up in neutral? – it’s a bit forward of that and won’t comeback farther.  My neighbor and his brother had the remote apart before I ever saw it, so it may not have been put back together right.  Am I correct that neutral should be straight up like all the other single lever remotes I’ve known?  Even with the cables disconnected at the motor, the remote will not quite get back to straight up, and so doesn’t go to reverse, although with it disconnected, I can easily move the motor’s linkage by hand to reverse, but the remote will not move the shift cable to its reverse length, even with that cable disconnected at the motor.  All this is with the rod to the timing plate disconnected, but holding the rod so the carb linkge doesn’t bind up on a big adjustment screw, so the motor appears to be OK.    Before I take the remote apart, is there anything in the remote control box that is known to go bad on these?  Anything I should look for where they could have screwed it up taking it apart before I was there?   The piano wire in the remote cable doesn’t appear to be slipping in the cable ends at either end.   Note that they may have forced the remote and messed it up internally when the timing plate was hooked up andnot moving before I was called on to look at it.

Thanks again for your help!  I’venow learned a lot about the linkage in the motor!

Dave