'56 Johnson 15hp waterpump/driveshaft mystery

[lindy46]

I was working on this '56 15hp Johnny for a neighbor. Needed new impeller and prop shaft/shift shaft seals. Took it apart, replaced the seals, had to remove the skeg to get to the shift shaft seal. Inspected all the gears. Put it back together and the Driveshaft was riding too low in the lower unit. The pin that drives the impeller actually wore a groove in the plate under the impeller and the plate buckled downward slightly. Obviously the impeller wasn't engaged in the pin and didn't pump water. My solution was to place a 3/8" thick brass spacer in the pinion gear where the driveshaft goes into the splines. The spacer raised the driveshaft and impeller pin to the right height and all is now working fine. My question is, does that pinion gear have a spacer in there that I may have lost when I had everything apart? I was afraid that adding that spacer may have caused the driveshaft to be too long, but it went right back together and the L/U bolted down fine. Puzzling

 

[a70eliminator]

Re: '56 Johnson 15hp waterpump/driveshaft mystery

I did an impeller job on a 58' last year and I remember a spring at the top of the driveshaft, where it goes into the power head, that keeps tension loaded pulling everything up, you would have had to remove the retainer spring and washer to seperate the power head, sounds like the spring could have been missing?