84' Johnson 75hp shifter adjust

[Jprobb1972]

Hi all, I dropped the bottom end thinking I needed to replace a bunch of seals but after having a shop pressure test it for me, they said it held 6 psi for almost 24hrs so did my impeller and returned it to me. I had water in the bottom when I drained the oil so maybe one of those phantom 'sometimes leak sometimes not' situations? Anyways, I only run this 2 weeks a year in the same freshwater lake (that is all time permits) but I change the gear oil every year and drag it 6 hours to the lake and 2 weeks later 6 hours back home.
Anyway, I hadn't actually put the bottom end back on this before, even though I had dropped it once before, but the shop at the time put it back on for me. This time I figured I would give it a whirl and got it up and found that every gear was 'reverse'. I dropped the bottom end off again and looked up spec for the rod length as I must have turned it and used a tape measure to mark the middle of the hole at 21 15/16s, but this meant turning the rod outwards 8x and that seemed wrong. I kept looking for specs and found another one stating 21 23/32, which is quite a bit shorter so I bought a nice 36inch steel ruler with markings to the 16th of an inch, marking it just below the 21 3/4 mark (551mm) and ended up turning the rod back in (I believe 4x but might have even been 6x). I reinstalled the bottom end and of course took quite a while to get that shifter bolt back in due to lack of space and difficulty seeing it with a bright outside background...plus mosquitos plus the 31 celsius and humidity...
When the lever was moved to forward the prop engages forward and neutral is full free neutral, then reverse is reverse.
So after this long commentary, I am a bit leery as when shifted into forward or reverse it seems like the gears don't actually engage right away (maybe just my paranoia) and this is all on the trailer and not in a real situation. Are there any other ways to fine tune the shifting without dropping the bottom end and turning the shifter rod? I thought this can be done on the cable but not sure what to do without my manual handy.
FYI, I had an account on this forum previously but hadn't logged in for a number of years and was unable to recover it so I created this account.
I will be probably be posting some additional questions in new threads about a 6hp evinrude my son picked up and possibly go back to the 2hp evinrude that I kind of gave up on a few years ago
Thanks in advance for any suggestions and help that can be provided

 

[racerone]

I would install a seal kit on this 50 year old motor.---In neutral the lever under the carburetor should be vertical.----And 21-23/32 in neutral is correct.

 

[Jprobb1972]

I would install a seal kit on this 50 year old motor.---In neutral the lever under the carburetor should be vertical.----And 21-23/32 in neutral is correct.

When I dropped it off at the marine shop 3 weeks ago, this is what I was expecting to be done but they didn't look at it until the end of last week, after I showed up there asking if it was going to be ready soon, and then they focused on it over the next two days. I had been asked about the model number before bringing it in originally as well, so i figured parts were being ordered, but clearly this never happened as the mechanic told me about the room full of parts he had, admitting he didn't know if he had any parts I might need. I was less than impressed but I was stuck and would have otherwise done the work myself (generally always did for smaller outboards). Unfortunately, I am leaving in a day so there is no time to do this now and I will hope for the best, but will drop the gear oil when I get back home to see whats in there and then maybe pull the bottom end for over the winter. To clarify, although it is a 50 yr old motor, the bottom end seals were all done about 5 or 6 years ago.
In the meantime I am hoping the tolerances are good for the shifting and I fired it up no problem today, running it for about 10 minutes at a time. Seemed to be more water coming out the exhaust ports than I recall, but seemed to run okay...maybe a little on the fast side so i will have to see if I can dial it down a little bit as I don't want any problems with shifting,

 

[racerone]

It should not have water in there if all seals were replaced 6 years ago.----Or perhaps missed the o-ring on the shift rod ??