mid 70's merc 850 stuck in forward - no impeller change

[summitlt]

Ok. Worked fine last year, pulled the boat apart for paint putting it back together now. Cant seem to get the motor to come out of hear, its stuck in Forward. Even with all the cables off, I cant seem to manually shift it either. Nothing I do will get it to come out of gear.

So it isnt a control or cable problem. The lower unit hasnt been off since i've had it and it worked ok last year. At one point it did get stuck in fwd, but pulling the motor up and dropping it seemed to "fix" it. Any ideas what could be wrong?

 

[emckelvy]

Re: mid 70's merc 850 stuck in forward - no impeller change

Make sure the motor is properly resting on the tilt pin. If the motor was shifted to Neutral then lowered onto the tilt pin, the lockout hooks would jam on the pin and that would lead to shifting problems.

The insides of the hooks should rest on the tilt pin, so they'll lock around the pin in Neutral and Reverse. If you see they're resting on the rounded, outside of the hooks, that's a problem.

Raise the motor, manually shift the linkage at the powerhead to Fwd. Then see if the lockout hooks are free to move. If they are stuck, that can also cause problems. It may help to heat them up with a propane or other suitable torch, then hit them with a shot of PB Blaster etc. Grab the hook assy with a pair of Vise Grips to help turn it while you're heating.

If none of the above is an issue, you're gonna need to drop the lower unit and see if you can manually shift by turning the shift shaft in a CCW direction to shift from FWD-Neutral-Reverse. Spinning the prop or driveshaft a bit while you're shifting will help.

Just a thought, when you shift at the motor, is there any sort of resistance or detent felt as you're moving the shifting arm thru its travel? If you feel no drag at all, it's possible the upper shift rod or shift rod coupler have issues.

HTH & let us know what you find..........ed

 

[summitlt]

Re: mid 70's merc 850 stuck in forward - no impeller change

Forgot to update this, felt pretty dumb afterwards. The locks were against the trim pin