Shifting hard....

[Mytts]

Hello guys, I have had water in my lower unit twice so it is dry now with all new seals and everything, but it seems as tho my shifting is sometimes smooth and others times really hard. the detent seems to be alittel loose , im wondering the only way is pull out the entire drive shaft and lower gears to get to it. do you think it might jsut be gunk or rust preventing it from shifting sometimes? i dont want to pull everythign out. any ideas guys? is there anythign i can put int there to take away any bad stuff like CLR or something you know that wont screw my seals up. I intially figured this out by realizing that the shift connector under the carbs was broken. i got it welded and its broken again. when its out i can shift with my hand but then it will seem like it gets stuck and cant shift then it will with readjsut it seems. any ideas guys?

Its a Johnson 1978 50 hp 55El78s

 

[Daviet]

Re: Shifting hard....

Might help if we knew what type of engine we were working with.

 

[Mytts]

Re: Shifting hard....

I edited it...

 

[Daviet]

Re: Shifting hard....

You can flush the system with something like mineral spirits or parts solvent.
The shift rod you are moving is attached to a detent in the lower unit, it could be binding because of the water in the lower unit that corroded the detent or housing.
If you flush the lower unit really good and the problem is still there, you might have to disassemble the lower unit and clean it.

 

[Dhadley]

Re: Shifting hard....

If flushing doesn't help you may have a swelled o ring on the shift rod. Kinda common really and not hard to fix. Just pull the shift rod cover off the lower unit and change the o ring.