Re: 1957 Johnson 35hp wont stay in gear

[dougs-outboards]

"OK, a "slack adjustment"….That’s a new one on me, how’s about edumacatin the rest of us….I am surely aware of the slot on the shift handle to adjust positioning of the shift handle vs detent, but this won’t take up/solve any slop/slack problems in the linkage control systems. D"

Oh yes, it certainly will in a lot of cases tried and true.

Well, I’m no genius, and found out about this by just looking and figgerin’ on my own, it’s just common sense to me. I call it a slack adjustment, you can call it whatever you want. Happy to explain it. I have successfully loosened up the side bolt so that the shifter can be moved slightly, (the bolt can be a bugger, most of the screws I have worked on seemed to be stuck pretty good, so do not strip it out or prollems, they all seemed to be rusted, squirting it with wd or the like will help), then I open up the oval side access plate for the shift connector, (Make sure the rod is seated correctly in the connector). shifter in forward, I reach in with a pair of needle nose pliers into the access hole, grab the shift rod, wedging the pliers down, fulcruming the shift rod upwards into the extreme forward position, making sure it has as much forward contact with the gear as possible. Then I slightly move the shift handle back (just a hair, maybe 1/16", now your dog has the best chance of engaging the lugs for a tight fit totally going into gear, assuming your lugs are not too bad off) and tighten the bolt. The shifter goes ahead back into full forward, taking up that 1/16" ) it goes in gear tight, and does not seem to affect reverse as little as reverse is used. If your dogs are too bad, this is futile, It just makes sense to me that after many years of use, there has to be some slop somewhere in there, in the bell crank and possibly the shifter cradle down below, if only a little. It only takes a little slop to have problems. I have done this on many motors with success, perhaps it will work for you too. And of course when you put it in gear, rpm’s way down, shift it in gear fast, not slow, don’t baby it into gear, it will cause more wear on the steel parts. Thanks for asking.

Pappy: Thank you for the kind words, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now, Ha!