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

[Anonymous]

On Facebook a thread by Jesse Simmons discusses worn clutch dogs and worn dogs on the gears as the cause of popping in and out of gear. And several solutions have been suggested to fix the problem. Replacing the gear set and clutch dog. Flipping the forward and reverse gears. Replacing the clutch dog. First I will ask the question, what keeps the clutch dogs engaged with the dogs on the gear to stay in contact with each other ? Case #1 1958 Evinrude 10hp Motor was run 5 years ago all day at all speeds and never popped out of gear. Last year at a meet I went to use the motor and it would not stay in gear without popping in and out of gear. Later at the shop I disassembled the gear foot and found new looking gears and dogs. They showed no wear at all on the dogs. Case #2 1957 Johnson 10hp Motor. This motor came to me in stuck condition. I thought at first the power head was the problem., but as it turned out the culprit was a seized gear foot. On disassembly I found that 1/2 of the gear teeth rusted away and clutch dog stuck on the prop shaft. Half of the clutch fork was missing. Everything was frozen on the prop shaft and had to be heated and pressed off, even the driveshaft was stuck. This motor was in rough external condition too. I had a Very nice condition 1957 Johnson 18hp motor than was missing the skeg cover. The 10hp motor’s skeg cover was used on the 18hp motor after checking for a good clearance fit with match up and no binding of the internal parts., Even the paint condition was a good match. So I still had the 10hp motor that was for parts OR I could try am experiment. I had a green painted maroon gear foot from a 1952-1954 10hp motor that I saved from the scrap metal yard 10 years ago. I disassembled it and found a good fork and gears with good teeth, but the dogs on the gears and the clutch dog showed very worn rounded off edges. I had hoped to use these, but the shape these were in would make it hop in and out of gear. I decided to start my experiment. I went ahead with the reassembly of the gear foot using the worn out gears/dogs/clutch and the miss matched skeg cover. The cover was checked before assembly for clearances and binding. Next thing to do was a boat test, that I fully expected to not go well and would be a very short run. Well the run ended up 25 miles of running. The motor has been run now more than 20 hours. It operates well with no issues . I also did prop testing with this motor and with a bronze Michigan Wheel Aquamaster prop it went 22-23 mph on GPS It never at any time tried to hop out of gear and the gear lube showed no water intrusion after all of this running and no gear whine. I know it is not a good idea to swap skeg covers or mix or match gears., but in this case it worked out great. BACK to my original question at the beginning of this long winded post. What keeps the dogs engaged? I will follow up like Paul Harvey with the rest of the story a little later.

[outboardnut]

folllowing

[frankr]

What keeps them together? Very little. They slide together and nothing really holds them together except the shift linkage and detent, whether it is at top or bottom. Later models had snap shift balls in the clutch dog. It is vital that they slide completely together in the first place. You are fighting a losing battle if the linkage is worn out. Along the same line, if the dog and gear are rounded off, it is going to jump out of gear, no matter what. You can’t even hold it in gear with your hand on the shifter lever. You say you built one up with worn out dog and gear and it held. Well thank some higher power, I suppose.

Some motors are better in this respect than others. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Mercury with the jumping problem. Or Scott-Atwater. But, yep tens of hundreds of OMC and Chrysler/West Bends.

Before you Merc guys get too cocky, remember the Mark 25 – type of motors that jump INTO gear and run over the pier.

[aquasonic]

frankr wrote:

Before you Merc guys get too cocky, remember the Mark 25 – type of motors that jump INTO gear and run over the pier.

Got a good laugh out of that one!

[chris-p]

Something to note, 9 times out of 10, the clutch dog and gear lug damage is caused by the Owner.

Remember to always SNAP that shifter into gear in a quick fast movement. NEVER slowly easeeeee it into gear. That is what causes the damage.

My Father in Law is very timid with this, and thinks that shifting slowly is better for the motor. It makes me cringe when I hear his lugs smashing away against one another!

[Peter Krause]

chris-p wrote:

Something to note, 9 times out of 10, the clutch dog and gear lug damage is caused by the Owner.

Remember to always SNAP that shifter into gear in a quick fast movement. NEVER slowly easeeeee it into gear. That is what causes the damage.

My Father in Law is very timid with this, and thinks that shifting slowly is better for the motor. It makes me cringe when I hear his lugs smashing away against one another!

Dogs also work on an angle to “lock” and make better the engagement. The problem described above is certainly begun by grinding the dogs and rounding the teeth, such that the angle is no good anymore. If you “snap” it into gear, they will last MUCH longer, if slowly “ground into gear” it’ll never get any better.

1958 Evinrude Lark x 2
1961 Evinrude Lark III x 2
1962 Evinrude Starflite IV
1963 Evinrude Starflite V
1964 Evinrude Starflite VI
1965 Big Twin Electric
1966 Yachtwin folding
1967 Evinrude Starflite 100-S
1969 Evinrude Big Twin Electric

[dave-bernard]

not owner error just poor design that the engineers blame on owner.

[sydinnj]

With remote control, make sure the cables are adjusted properly and in good shape. Had a problem on my daughters boat that had several of us scratching our heads. We could not get it to shift into both gears properly, could adjust to get neutral and one direction or the other but not both. We are also looking at this problem with the knowledge that the previous owner had a fat four on it that was made up from several motors. He said that it worked fine with these cables. After a bunch of time, I discovered that at some point someone cut off a bit of the inner shift cable, most likely to get rid of an early pinch kink where the end gets fastened on. They also cut off a piece of the end of the outer casing to compensate for the shorting of the inner wire. A new cable solved the problem.

[1957evinrude]

dave-bernard wrote:

not owner error just poor design that the engineers blame on owner.

Maybe not the best design but for sure if you let the dog slip by shifting slowly you will have problems down the road otherwise if you shift quickly and at low idle those gears will last many years

[fleetwin]

I read your post but am not sure I understand just what you asking….
In any event, like others have said, some outboards have a bit of an angled ramp on the dog/gear lugs that can help hold them engaged. Otherwise, just the pressure of the dog against the gear lug helps keep them locked together.
Most of the time, the various linkages are to blame when clutch dog problems occur, remote controls add even more errors.
This is why it is so important to check for slop and full forward engagement when repairing clutch dog/gear lug issues, otherwise the issue is likely to reoccur even with new parts. I have even noticed that some of the small gearcases with the detent that rides against the shift rods don’t have complete engagement in forward gear.
But, it is important to note that “preloading” a clutch dog into the forward gear lugs in an effort to solve jumping issues, or in an effort to make sure they don’t occur, will just wear out the aluminum cradle and shift fork linkage.
I too cringe when I hear people shifting gears slowly, that chattering noise is like hearing fingernails going down a chalk board to me!
You speak of swapping gearcase skegs, it is important to note that the gearcase housings are a matched pair, just like crankcase halves. I know many guys do it with no problems, but you need to be aware of the risk you are taking when mixing/matching gearcase halves.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by fleetwin.

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