Re: red plastic arm, johnson 15hp
From the looks of your starter lockout spring, the RED arm should be on the other side of the upright vertical silver bar. That's why there's no tension on the spring. Perhaps you can loosen (NOT TO MUCH) the large bolt holding the starter assembly, rotate the starter assembly clockwise to allow you to position the RED arm as in my pic. Rotate the starter assembly back to it's original position, and tighten the bolt.<br /><br />Another option is to rotate the flywheel until the bolt that holds the RED lockout arm is fully exposed. There's a cut-out in the edge of the flywheel for this reason. Loosen or remove this bolt, position the RED arm as in my pic and replace the bolt.<br /><br />When properly positioned, the starter rope will be disabled when the motor is in gear. The motor does not have to be running to put it in gear. If you find it hard to get into forward or reverse gear, manually rotate the flywheel clockwise while putting gentle pressure on the gear shift lever, it should go into gear easily. By all means, don't try to force the lower unit into gear if it binds, just apply pressure on the gear lever and rotate the flywheel, it should slide into gear.<br />When in gear, you should see the RED arm engage the starter assembly, preventing the rope from being pulled. When in Neutral gear, the RED arm retracts and allows the rope to be pulled.